The Slayers of Dune Book II:The Dreams of the Lost
by MrPointy2
Summary: The Slayers of Dune must figure out how to live in the world they've created.
1. Chapter 1

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre  
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;  
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;  
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,  
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;  
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;  
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.  
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out  
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi  
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert  
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,  
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,  
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it  
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.  
The darkness drops again; but now I know  
That twenty centuries of stony sleep  
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats *The Second Coming.

**PROLOG**:

Buffy sat on her porch and watched the stars.

"My son is out there." She said to Willow. They sat a moment in silence.

"You know the dreams, the slayer dreams?" She said. "All I see is him. We're sitting on an unknown planet surrounded by dunes. There is sand everywhere." Buffy paused for a moment.

"He's just a boy!" She said. Her distress was evident. "He's just a baby!"

In her dreams she saw a small boy with dark skin and black hair. His eyes were the strangest blue within blue. He looked so small and fragile. His face was round and his figure was thin and delicate. His vulnerability made her want to hold him close and protect him. Her maternal instincts were in full swing.

"There are others there." Buffy continued. "They're women, but these women… they are like nothing I've ever seen before. They move with unbelievable speed and their eyes are blue within blue just like his."

"Don't worry Buffy, we'll figure something out." Willow said trying to be supportive.

"That's the thing Wil. I recognize one of the women from my dreams. I _remember_ her!" Buffy looked at Willow with big round eyes. "How is it I that remember someone I've never met?"

Willow knew the answer to Buffy's question. But she had taken a vow never to reveal such incredible information. However, she didn't promise not to drop clues.

"What do you remember about the time you found out about the true nature of Dawn?" Willow asked.

"I remember constantly getting my ass kicked by Glory." Buffy said smartly. "Glory wanted to bleed Dawn when the stars became right. She wanted to release the green energy that was the key."

_Ten thousand years later the children of Dawn would carry just enough of that green energy to burn the galaxy._

"Surayya!" Buffy said with shock and surprise. "Her name was Surayya Atreides!" She stood as the memories came flooding back to her. Buffy felt as if the scales had fallen from her eyes. The fullness of the revelation left her floored.

"That was not the first time we met!" Buffy leaned in close to Willow. "The night we closed down the Initiative, the night you did the joining spell!"

_Not a single drop of water flowed on the surface of Arrakis._

In cascading waves, the memories flooded back into her. She could feel hot dry sand on her skin. She remembered shattering time with spice. She remembered a sandworm nearly a mile long. But she remembered something worse; she remembered a white casket miles long and _something _powerful enough to destroy the Old Ones with a flick of its wrist.

"_Who will morn over us?" Illyria asked. "Who will build our temples? Who will know we were even here? She asked with real sadness in her voice._

"We will." said Surayya. "The slayers will be an everlasting monument to the demon age."

"Buffy? Are you ok?" Willow asked. Buffy was staring directly at her but not seeing her. Buffy was in the grip of a clear and awful memory.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, we released it, we released The Destroyer! Willow stood. She grabbed Buffy and held her tight. Buffy's body was shaking. Willow could smell the fear coming off of her. The muscles down Buffy's back rippled as adrenaline flowed through her. Her stomach muscles clinched in uncontrollable fear.

"We released the Destroyer!"

Willow gently wiped the tears away from the corner of Buffy eyes.

"This Destroyer, is it bad?" Willow asked.

"It is the worst." Buffy said with a grimace. "It is the source of the thing that kills demons. It is the source of the slayers. "

Willow looked at her dumbfounded.

"The Watchers got it all wrong. The first slayer wasn't raped by a demon. The Dark Men chained her to the ground to protect themselves from her. The Destroyer gave a portion of his sprit for the Dark Men to use to protect the world. The destroyer knew he wouldn't be here for us when we needed him. He was at war with the Old Ones, and they were winning. He knew that the final conflict between him and the Old Ones would result in a type of death that would require millions of years to recover from. He loved her Wil."

"Who?" Willow asked

"Sineya, the first Slayer. You know, scary rasta mama?" Buffy managed a weak smile.

"_Your daughters rule now. The bride is waiting. Remember how it started? Remember the deal that was made?"_

"_Is she ready to receive all of my essence?" The Destroyer asked.  
_

_They could all hear his voice in their heads. Surayya answered. "Yes." she said. "Sineya waits for you. It has been a long time."_

Buffy remembered what happened next. The full essence of the Destroyer poured into Sineya who was the last sandworm of Arrakis. She had taken every drop of him into herself. No woman had ever been so fulfilled.

The Destroyer was there on Arrakis with her son.

They took my son." That one thought echoed in her head over and over again and again and every time she thought about it she became madder and madder.

"They took my son! What the hell gives them the right!" Buffy was shaking with pure rage now. She pushed herself away from Willow and looked for something to hit. She paced back and forth, her fury building with every step. Finally, she smashed her fist into the side of the house shattering the wood frame.

"THEY TOOK MY SON!" Buffy said.

"I know." Agreed Willow. "We'll find a way to get him back."

"Damn right." Buffy said. Willow had never seen Buffy so angry.

"Whatever we do, we have to make sure we find her first." Buffy said as she examined her bloody fist.

"Who?" Willow asked.

"A demon, named Illyria." Buffy said.

Above them the stars still shined cold and bright and by no action or deed did they betray their secrets.

"Surayya Raisa Atreides. You will have to answer to me. " Buffy folded her arms over her chest and stared into the dark.

Buffy found him working in a garage outside of El Paso Texas. He was over six feet of muscle and smooth brown skin. Buffy watched him for a moment before she walked over. He looked pretty good for a man that had been to hell, had been a vampire and had challenged the forces of darkness as a member of Angel Investigations.

"Charles Gunn?" Buffy asked.

The man rolled himself from under the '67 mustang. There were oil spots on his work jumper. He stared at her for a moment. He ran his eyes over her body the way men did when meeting an attractive woman, then something clicked. A memory long buried came back to him. He stared at her face and then smiled.

"Anne?" Charles said remembering a young waitress he'd had met years ago, a young waitress that liked to kill vampires.

"Angel, I could kill you if you weren't already dead." Buffy muttered to herself.

"It's Buffy, Buffy Summers. " She said as she held out her hand for him to shake.

Charles eyes went wide. "_The_ Buffy Summers?" He said. Charles ignored her hand and grabbed her in a bear hug. "Girl, we're practically family."

Buffy returned his hug.

When Charles released her she went to the reason why she was here.

"Charles, I need a lawyer.' She said seriously.

Charles frowned as he remembered his time with Wolfram and Hart.

"I don't do that anymore." Charles said. "Let's just say my former employer will no longer vouch for my services."

Buffy had heard all about Los Angeles being cast into a hell dimension and Angel's part in returning it to the world. Buffy stepped closer to Charles making sure she was inside his personal space. She knew that Charles had memories of certain nights in Los Angeles, certain hot sweaty nights they had together, certain nights that always happened after they had gone slaying together. Getting to her son was the only thing that mattered to her. She had no problem seducing him.

"I need you to take an affidavit from a demon." She said. "I need a legally binding contract with Illyria."

Charles backed away from her a little. It was like he had heard her suggest grinding up puppies to make milk shakes.

"Why?" He asked. Charles had his arms crossed. The lawyer in him was all business.

"It's personal." She said.

"A slayer wants to make a deal with a demon and I'm not supposed to have any problems with that?" He said to her.

Buffy stepped closer to him and looked him in the eye. Charles could see her pain.

He frowned. "I 'm a damn fool." He said to himself.

"Yo! Blue Thunder!" He yelled to the back office.

Something wearing the body of Fred Winifred walked out from the back. She wore a white blouse and a tan skirt with black Nile West pumps.. She smiled as she came towards Buffy. She extended her hand.

Buffy cringed and drew back some. "You're dead." She said. "Willow said you were dead."

Fred's expression grew grim. "It has been transformed." She said.

"What, what has been transformed?" Buffy asked.

"The shell." Illyria answered. Subtly, quickly her body transformed even her clothing. When it was finished the tall, thin blue skinned Illyria stood before Buffy. Illyria was dressed in her standard blood red body armor.

Buffy looked at her intensely. Illyria looked exactly the same as in her visions. She had appeared not to age a day.

"Why are you here, slayer?" Illyria asked. Her voice was filled with arrogance.

Buffy was fast. While Illyria was talking Buffy was hyper charging her bloodstream with oxygen. She focused her mind in the way Surayya had taught her. With an unimaginable speed, Buffy exposed her knife, stepped in and sliced a small curl of hair from the head of Illyria. Only after it was done, did Charles even know she had moved. He jumped back.

"Whoa!" Charles said. "I didn't know you could do that!"

Illyria saw the curl of hair Buffy held in her hand. She knew where Buffy was going with this.

"You are invoking the nikah?" Illyria said astonished. Illyria spoke of an obligation, of a covenant so strong that it resembled marriage. "Why would I do that?" Illyria asked as she slowly inched her way to within striking distance of the slayer.

Buffy held the lock of hair. "Because I now have something you want. Because, I now own a part of you and you will never be whole until you get it back."

"What's to stop me from just killing you and taking it back? " Illyria asked.

"I will stop you." Buffy said.

"Oh, really?" Illyria sneered. "You and what army."

Forty seven slayers appeared out of nowhere rushing into the garage at Buffy's prearranged signal.

Illyria looked them over. There were young women of various ages and races holding all manner of mystical weapons. Illyria knew she could probably fight her way out of here but she would know she had been in a fight.

Illyria exhaled. "Yes slayer, I will accept the nikah. I will make a covenant with you on my sacred promise."

"Then it is agreed?" Buffy asked.

"Yes, you have my word." Illyria said. "I will meet you at the end of the demon age."

"Good." Buffy said. "Willow will fill you in with the details and my lawyer will take your statement and make it binding"

Buffy turned to Charles.

"You want to get some dinner and catch up on old times?" Buffy asked him.

"I'm still trying to catch up on the new times." Charles said. "But yeah, dinner sounds great but you're paying."

Charles left to get dressed. Buffy looked at Illyria. She could tell. Illyria glared at her with no small measure of hate.


	2. Chapter 2

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

I have lived long enough to have seen the world change. People live just long enough to catch a tiny portion of the world mutating around them but I have lived thousands of years. I remember how the world was on the day of creation. I know the origin of words and the meaning of fashion. I have seen the man behind the curtain and the secret hand of history. It is instructive to note that the original meaning of the word Apocalypse is _revelation_.

Leto II

Commentaries on History

The sandstorm stopped just before dawn. For hours on end the winds of the deep desert blew particles of sand over the small village. The sand coated everything. The doors, the roofs, the streets were inch deep in dust. No one had moved on the streets for hours.

It had spent three days walking in from the deep desert. For over thirty hours it had marched in nearly a straight line. It felt no fear, no pain and its mind held a singular focus, a singular thought. It's body was covered in a blood red suit of armor, it's skin was powder blue. It had fought the searing storms of the desert, it had survived the heat of Arrakis and now it had reached its target.

Illyria, sovereign and warrior of the demon age, gently tapped on the worn wooden door before her. She waited patiently as she heard the occupants stir. She ignored the sting of the sand in her face. After long minutes the door opened. Illyria looked down into the dark sleepy face of Surayya Raisa Atreides.

Surayya recognized the emissary of the Destroyer and immediately let her in to the small three bedroom hut. Since resigning her commission with the slayer fleet, she, Motorria and Lisa had moved into one of the smaller districts of the capital city. They wanted somewhere quiet and safe while they waited for the baby to be born.

Surayya allowed Illyria into her home. Her eyes followed Illyria as she entered the room. Out of habit or training Surayya marked the distance between them and held her hand inches from her reliable lexan knife. Her knife contained a metal that was formed in a dark matter star. It was the only thing she knew that could kill Illyria for sure. Her knife could kill any Old One. That's why Leto had given it to his slayers. Of course, the knife didn't help the thousands of slayers killed in their assault on Tailos Three. It sure didn't help poor Alisha Itkin who had her head torn off by Anubis inside the deeper Well. Leto gave them a lot of things that didn't help them at all in the real world. He was dead before they could return from Tailos Three. Leto never got to focus them, to shape them for living in his empire.

Surayya still missed the old man.

"What brings you here, emissary?" Surayya asked. The slayer within her found it insulting to have to address a demon with respect.

Illyria produced a gold cylinder. She twisted off the top of the cylinder producing an ancient document.

It was actually written on paper, from Earth!

"This is my covenant." She said. "This is the _nika,_ my sacred promise."

Surayya examined the ancient paper. It was written in a language long forgotten by Humanity. Her eyes drifted over the paper and stopped dead when recognized her own name.

"Why is my name on a document that predates space flight?" She asked. "Is this a prophecy?"

"Not in the way that you mean." Illyria said. "This is a promise I made thousands of years ago. You must be there. It is awakening."

"What?" asked Surayya.

"The Shell."

Surayya watched Motorria stir in the back bedroom. She was in her first trimester and she was as big as a house.

"I'll have to make arrangements for Motorria and the child." Surayya said. "There are those would love to dissect it or worse."

"I have requested several slayers to be stationed here. We are aware of the interest the child has generated."

Something occurred to Surayya.

"Does the Destroyer know you're here?" She asked.

Illyria looked away pensive. Whatever this mission was it was something personal.

Surayya had her answer

"Give me a moment to pack some things." She said. She left Illyria standing all alone in the living room.


	3. Chapter 3

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero.

Pardot Kynes to Liet-Kynes

"Are we Owls or Roosters? " Illyria asked. "Do we believe that we are at the start of a new day like the rooster, or is it still night? Do we keep our eyes open like the Owl in order to see? Or do we herald a new day?"

Surayya had never known Illyria to be so introspective. Something was disturbing her, something she couldn't talk about directly. Surayya flexed her body in the soft faux leather chair at the captains' station of the "Sietch Tabr". The fishspeaker's had been kind enough to lend the reconnaissance ship to them. In fact, they insisted that Illyria take the "Sietch Tabr" and leave Arrakis as quickly as possible on more than one occasion.

They agreed that Surayya would be the acting captain for the duration of the mission. For days, Illyria had been quietly standing by the captains' station. Surayya could tell that she was listening to something, or thinking about something or counting the air molecules in the room. Whatever it was it kept her fully engaged for the last two days. Suddenly, and without warning, Illyria turned to Surayya and asked her about owls and roosters.

"I am definitely a rooster." Surayya said. "I was there aboard "Her Graceful Measure" when the Destroyer was awakened. I saw the destruction of the Old Ones and the end of the demon age. "

"And yet, I am still here." Illyria said. "I am an Old One and I am still here."

Surayya gently ran her hand over her lexan knife. She knew it could kill an Old One.

"The demon age is not over yet." Illyria said. "We are still waiting for the Apocalypse; we are still waiting for the _revelation_ of the knowledge."

"Of what?" Surayya asked.

"Of when we can destroy this universe and go home." Illyria said then looked away. Hours later, she said to Surayya "all demons are owls."

A day later the "Sietch Tabr" entered orbit above Earth. Surayya ordered the ship to assume a geostationary orbit above Sunnydale California.

It had been over twelve thousand years since Humans began the great exodus from Earth and the Earth was better for it. Its oceans were blue and clean its jungles, full of life, filled the landmasses. From orbit, they spotted the sinkhole that was Sunnydale easily.

The "Sietch Tabr" touched down half a kilometer from the edge of the sinkhole. Surayya left command of the ship to her second officer. This mission was only for her and Illyria.

"I don't get it." Surayya asked. "I understand you're going because of a promise you made to her. But why am I here?"

"Because she asked for you. She made me promise to bring you." Illyria said.

"And if I had refused?"

"I would have dragged you by your hair, kicking and screaming all the way to Earth." Illyria answered.

"Right." Surayya muttered. "I don't think so."

They stood at the edge of a great cliff and over a period of hours made their way down to the base. Surayya's mind was full of memories of the town of Sunnydale. She had even visited it once. Spike had sent her back through time to stop the children of Dawn from destroying the galaxy. The landscape she stood on now bared no resemblance to the city she had visited. Everywhere in the pit was jungle.

Illyria pointed to a rock outcropping a few hundred meters away.

"There!" She said. "The shell is there."

They walked to the outcropping and stopped at its base. Illyria laid three crystals on the ground. She took a forth crystal and using only her bare hand crushed the crystal into the face of the rock.

The fourth crystal began to pulse in a soft blue white light, then it flickered then shined in hard yellow like tracking circuit looking for a signal. Whatever it was looking for it had found. The other three crystals began to glow as well.

"There was a man on ancient Earth that exploited the weak for profit." Illyria said. "His name was Corbin Fries. He was a client of Angel Investigations."

The memories of Surayya confirmed that what Illyria was saying was true.

"Mr. Fries threaten to release a biological weapon upon the world if his demands were not met. He kept the weapon locked up in a mystical vault implanted in the beating heart of his son."

Illyria bent over the crystals on the ground watching them carefully.

"Willow figured it out. She figured out a way to use a mystical vault to keep the shell safe." Illyria said as she looked up at the outcropping that was slowly melting away, revealing the form of Buffy Summers.

Illyria gently stroked one of the crystals.

"We used magic to hollow out a huge boulder and placed the vault inside. We placed her soul in these crystals and I have hidden them for over ten thousand years. Willow then used a simple binding spell to keep everything locked away."

"Tailos Three!" Surayya thought. "This sounds exactly like how Tailos Three was constructed!"

The pulsating of crystals stopped. The gray haired and ancient frame of Buffy Summers was before them.

"Of course, we had to wait until she was dead." Illyria said.

Illyria gently cradled the body of the slayer that had long ago cornered her in the garage of Charles Gunn and had forced her to be bound by a promise. Illyria lifted the corpse of Buffy. She stared into her sleeping face. Buffy looked peaceful.

"Come." Illyria said. "We must take her back to Arrakis. Only his holy fire can bring her back to life. Through the Destroyer, she shall live again."

They made their way back towards the ship


	4. Chapter 4

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

Is your religion _real_ when it costs you nothing and carries no risk? Is your religion _real_ when you fatten upon it? Is your religion _real_ when you commit atrocities in its name? Whence comes your downward degeneration from the original revelation?

Paul Atreides

She waited nervously behind the stage. It was time for morning services for the Church of Universal Light. Even though she despised the basis of their beliefs, she worked to support and rebuild them. Months ago she had played a part in the bombing of the main church building in the Arrakis capital city. The guild of assassins had gone too far. A biological weapon had been released killing hundreds of thousands. Because of that, civil war had come Arrakis. The space station, the "Leit-Kynes" had been blown from the sky. An ungodly number of people had died. There was blood on her hands and she was here to do penance for her sins.

Lucillia Corrino eyed the crowd that filtered into the ancient one room building. The temple had been here for hundreds of years. There was desert sand covering the floor and dust in the air. There were three sets of columns on each side of the room. Engraved on each column, in inch high golden letters, was the complete Atreides family history that covered every major event from the Butlerian Jihad to the rise of Paul Muad'dib to the ascension and death of Leto II the God emperor of Dune. No where were the slayers or their assault on Tailos Three mentioned. Lucillia wondered what other events were edited out of the official history of the world.

The first speaker, a freman niab, who still believed that the fremen were still relevant was preparing to open worship services. Lucillia had seen this part a thousand times before. The niab would whip the crowd into frenzy with desert songs and obscure prophecies. As the crowd reached a fevered peak, he would make vague and vulgar proclamations. Today, the Fish Speakers would be the target of his outrage. She knew there were plenty of legitimate grievances against the Fish Speakers since they had declared planetary marshal law under "Her Graceful Measure." Thousands of people had disappeared in the middle of the night and were never heard from again. No one knew but the slayers that the planet killer "Her Graceful Measure" was being controlled by vampires. There was a huge amount of anger and unfocused rage on Arrakis.

"_O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your ____prayers" __**The niab's voice bellowed across the room.**_

_"**Find us Shai-Hulud**____**, we are the lost**__**" the crowd rejoined.**_

Lucillia heard the pattern of call and response. The rhythm of it was hypnotic. Her Bene Gesserit training knew that by this hypnotic pattern the subconscious mind could be excited into a transcendent state. She admired the artistry of it all. Her spice driven memories knew the important role rhythm , from heartbeats to breathing, to patterns of growing and dying, played in the well being of the Human race.

She was so lost in the rhythm she almost didn't notice the niab slump at the podium. She played back her memories of the last few seconds. She had not heard or seen a weapon fire. She prayed everyday that there would be no further violence against the church. She observed the niab with Bene Gesserit eyes. She knew. He was having a heart attack. Lucillia rushed to the stage and caught him before he hit the ground.

She had no time to think.

Bracing his back, Lucillia placed the palm of her hand over his heart and used her slayer strength to force the heart to beat. She placed her lips on his and blew her breath into his lungs. But that was not enough. His body was dying and she had to find a way to stop that. Lucillia secreted a small drop of spittle which contained the residue of the spice secreted from the God-Worm. She and the other slayers on Arrakis had begun to take the Destroyer amplified spice to the point where their bodies were saturated with it.

The effects were immediate.

The niab sat up wide eyed and clear headed. He looked at Lucillia realizing what she was and what just happened.

"_Sayyadina" _The old niab said. "You bring the water of life?" His eyes were teary, red rimmed and full of hope.

In Chakobsa, Sayyadina meant "Friend of God." It was a term used by fremen of old to describe wise women trained in spiritual traditions. They would take the spice and "pass within" to convert poisonous spice into the water of life. The old man began to cry.

"_Sayyadina, _you have returned!" He said. His voice grew louder. The old niab was growing stronger. His voice rang out without the help of amplification.

"I was at the gates of death and the _Sayyadina _came for me." The niab said as he grabbed Lucillia by the shoulders. She could have easily pushed him off but was too deeply in shock at what was happening.

"This is a powerful sign, a miracle! God is with us!" He yelled. The crowd reveled in the revelation as they crowded around Lucillia. Hands gently touched her robe. Lucillia struggled to deny them. Her voice was lost was the crowd overwhelmed her.

Surayya watched the Earth dwindle on the view screens. She and Illyria had made it back to the "Sietch Tabr." Below decks, surrounded by an honor guard, lay the mummified remains of Buffy Summers. Illyria was convinced that the Destroyer could bring her back to life. In fact she had insisted that the Destroyer had this ability even though it had never been demonstrated to any of the Slayers.

"What made Buffy so sure the Destroyer could resurrect her?" Surayya asked of Illyria on their way back to the ship.

"I believe you slayers have dreams that show the future." Illyria said.

Surayya agreed.

"The _worm_ is the source of your visions now." Illyria said.

Surayya remembered what he was told by Sineya while deep in the spice trance.

_I am the source of you now." Sineya said. "From this moment on your dreams will come from me."_

"Why would the Destroyer call Buffy here?" Surayya asked herself. "The Destroyer could have easily pulled Buffy through time because of the powers given to Sineya by Spike." The more she thought about Buffy being here like this the less it made sense. Surayya was trained by Leto as a mentat as well as being trained in the ways of the Bene Gesserit.

"This Buffy was not pulled through time." Surayya thought. She lived out her entire life on ancient Earth and then died of old age in bed surrounded by all of her fat grandchildren. This Buffy has no reason to return to the past. She had already lived out her entire life there. This Buffy would never be going back to Sunnydale. She had fulfilled her mission as a slayer."

Thinking of slayers reminded Surayya of vampires. Surayya thought about how vampires were made. A disembodied sprit would enter a corpse and then reanimate it. The Destroyer was capable placing his sprit into living Humans to create slayers. What would happen if the Destroyer placed his sprit in a corpse?

Surayya stopped dead in her tracks. She had figured it out. She knew what the Destroyer was planning.

Illyria stopped for a moment and looked at Surayya. She knew enough about humans to recognize that expression. Surayya had just figured out something important about this version of Buffy

Illyria smiled cynically as she loaded the Buffy corpse on to the shuttle.


	5. Chapter 5

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

Men, finding no answers to the sunnan [the ten thousand religious questions from the Shari-ah] now apply their own reasoning. All men seek to be enlightened. Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God's universe. **Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness.**

The C.E.T. (Commission of Ecumenical Translators) Liturgical Manual opening statements, in "Appendix II: The Religion of Dune"

_14 Billion Years ago_

There was nothing.

There was no time or space or matter or energy.

_Then something happened._

In ten to the minus thirty seven seconds, the spark of all things exploded into a universe. The fires of creation could not be held in one dimension so it split into two, then three, then twenty seven dimensions creating space. Its fires became trapped in dimensional curls at the subatomic level creating matter. The arrow of entropy was set. Time was created.

The Destroyer had arrived.

Pulling from deep within itself it projected out of itself the parts of itself it could not see. The Destroyer was exploring itself. So, it projected it's essence into the void. The essence of the Destroyer rolled out into the nothingness creating all things. It built the world from its bones.

Billions of years later, the galaxies were formed and around the trillion and trillions of stars in the universe, life, intelligent life, began to evolve. The Destroyer wished to know them, so it broke off pieces of itself and sent them to explore the early universe. It knew it would be millions of years before they returned but he could wait.

The Destroyer could not die. It was immortal.

In the dark, the parts of itself that was sent off to explore the stars and make traffic with the life there began to turn. They forgot they were part of the Destroyer, they forgot they were part of a greater whole. The scattered pieces became selfish and twisted. They sought power for themselves and dreamed of destroying the very stars from which they were created.

They became the Old Ones.

Later, the Destroyer had seen what his scattered parts had become. He recalled his scattered selves back into himself. Most of them returned. A few would not, and so the wars began.

Across billions of years and trillion of species the war between the Destroyer and the Old Ones raged. In their time with the beings of flesh and blood, the Old Ones had learned tactics and strategies. They learned how to use the unstable energies of the Destroyer, called magic, to create mystical weapons.

In an act of profound betrayal, they banded together for a unified assault on the Destroyer. In desperation, the Destroyer left behind a part of himself to protect the world that it had made from its bones until the day of his resurrection.

The energy it left behind was used to create the Slayers. Thousands of years passed.

The vision faded

Lucillia slowly returned to the world of Men. The voice of the Destroyer faded in her head.

"_Why was I shown this?"_ She asked herself. The scale of the vision overwhelmed her.

"_Why was I shown this?" _

Tears were in the corner of her eyes. She could still feel the weight of a billion years pressing down on her like all the sand in all the dunes on Arrakis. Her life, her concerns and all of her fears were meaningless by comparison.

"_I have been so small!" _

It had been days since she had saved the old niab from a heart attack. The church insisted she speak to them today. No matter how she resisted, they insisted that she be their _Sayyadina. _Lucillia had spent the last few days writing a sermon on spirituality.

She threw her sermon in the trash. She would speak from the heart today.


	6. Chapter 6

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

The best art imitates life in a compelling way. If it imitates a dream, it must be a dream of life. Otherwise, there is no place where we can connect. Our plugs don't fit.

- Reverend Mother Darwi Odrade

Chapterhouse Dune

The Bene Gesserit sat in a well lit room in a house on the seacoast of Gammu. There were five of them assembled, they had gathered to discuss the events on Arrakis and the slayers that Leto had unleashed into their world. The Bene Gesserit were long term planners. Their breeding program, managed over thousands of years, had survived the violence of history and the weakness of the very species they were trying to save.

Three thousand years ago, one of their own, Lady Jessica of House Atreides, had betrayed them. She produced a boy, Paul Atreides, instead of a girl to be mated to House Harkonnen. Paul Atreides became the leader of the desert fremen with their wild genes. From Paul, came the _worm _and the corruption of their plans for thousands of years.

Leto had done something to the girl children of the Fish speakers. Now there slayers on Arrakis and a _monster_ that dwelt beneath the desert dunes.

Reverend Mother Angela Basara pleaded with the sisters.

"Believe me, I have seen the power of these slayers. " She said in tones that were calm to outsiders but to trained Bene Gesserit ears betrayed the sheer terror that Basara felt. She remembered the vampires aboard "Her Graceful Measure", the orange glowing eyes of Surayya Atreides and the cold sharp steel of her battle scythe against her choroid artery.

Reverend Mother Nisha Braun pretended to listen to Basara. Despite Angela being trained at the Arrakis Chapterhouse she was clearly unfit to make the hard choices the Bene Gesserit were forced to make. Nisha had made up her mind long before this meeting to proceed with her secret plans. At this point, the facts were irreverent and she would not be deterred by any inconvenient truth. As Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit, her authority was absolute. It was only because she was Mother Superior that she was allowed to explore "Her Graceful Measure" alone so soon after the slayers had wrecked it. It was aboard "Her Graceful Measure" that she found a ring buried in a pile of ashes, bones and a torn leather jacket. It was there; among the ruins that something came out of the woods and attacked her. The memories of pain and death had faded for Reverend Mother Nisha. She kept the gem of Amara firmly on her finger and struggled to control her thirst.

"We will not let the future slip from us again." Nisa said. "For three thousand years we have suffered the foolishness of wild genes. The Humans will be bred to our specifications and they will be controlled."

Basara found it odd how she pronounced the word _human_. Did not Nisa consider herself human? Angela used the art of minute observation as she watched the Mother Superior speak. Nisa kept her body perfectly still as she spoke. Her right hand constantly twisted the ring on her left hand.

Basara had seen that ring before.

"_Tell me slayer." He said. "Why do you smell like me?"_

"Because, I'm your daughter, metaphorically speaking." Surayya said. "I carry a piece of your demon essence inside of me. That's how I became s slayer." Surayya watched Spike carefully as she held the scythe in front of her.

"No, no, no" Basara said to herself. Reverend Mother Basara denied the truth her eyes were telling her.

Nisa continued to speak.

"We will wait and observe. And when the time is right, we will get the child carried by the slayer Motorria. That abomination will become a tool of the Bene Gesserit or die. Something evil inside of Nisa smiled at the thought of killing an innocent child.

Reverend Mother Basara heard the vocal shading of the evil thing before her.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer; fear is the little death…" Basara repeated the litany against fear silently to herself.

She dreamed of a world she had never seen. Surayya felt the vision blossom in her mind like a flower that had been pressed down deep into her and had expanded showing it bright sharp edges. It pushed everything else out of her mind. She leaned back in the captains' chair. The bridge crew didn't notice her sudden change in posture.

Before her was a vision of open plaza. Thousands of people milled around the square lost in the details of their own lives. The point of view shifted to show a young man. Surayya recognized him instantly.

Humans carried a finite number of genes and those genes could only be expressed in a finite number of ways. Nature never wasted anything and hated to reinvent the wheel. If a previous pattern was successful, nature would use it again until something better came along. Given enough time and population faces from the past would reemerge.

The young man in her vision was the splitting image of Alexander Harris.

She could hear his voice echoing from her pre-life memories.

"_The first day of kindergarten you cried 'cause you broke the yellow crayon and you were too afraid to tell anyone. You've come pretty far, ending the world, not a terrific notion... but the thing is, __yeah__. I love you. I love crayon-breaky Willow and I love scary veiny Willow. So if I'm going out, it's here. If you wanna kill the world, well then start with me. I've earned that."_

Surayya grasped. She could feel the sheer force of love in his voice.

The man in her vision pressed a button on the box he held in his hand. Everyone in the wide open plaza fell down dead. The man watched the scene for long moments then casually walked away. The vision faded. Surayya quickly checked the online news services. She found it in less than three minutes. On a small colony, near the outer rim of the empire there was a mystery. Ten thousand citizens had dropped dead for no apparent reason.

She jumped out of her chair and bounded to the chamber where they held Buffy's corpse. Illyria was silently standing over the body. Surayya walked up to her.

"Emissary." She said as soon as she walked into the room. "I must take my leave you and Buffy. I have been given a vision."

Illyria looked at her a long moment with no emotion on her face.

"I know." It finally said. "We all have our part to play."


	7. Chapter 7

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

"No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are."

**WHISTLER: **

**BTVS S02E21 "Becoming Pt1"**

She remembered how they came for her.

Illyria watched over the corpse of Buffy Summers as her mind drifted backwards to her first meeting with the Slayers of Arrakis. She remembered. Thousands of years ago she was still on Earth. Angel, Gunn, Spike and Wesley, especially Wesley, were gone. For years, she lived alone in a cave in the Arizona desert. Alone in her cave that night she felt _something_ tear a hole in space-time. The energy of it awakened long dead memories filed away millions of years ago.

Illyria crept along the wall of her cave until she found the entrance. She could see dark shapes moving on the rocks below. She counted at least twenty intruders. They were definitely coming her way. Illyria had no doubt that agents of the Wolf, Ram and Hart were coming for her head.

"Is this how they challenge me?" She thought with contempt. "They come at me in the night to slip a dagger in my back. They have no honor. I will kill them and spit on their graves."

"Sovereign!" A woman's voice called out from the rocks below. "The daughters of Sineya have need of you!"

"Slayers!" Illyria thought. She was being hunted by slayers. She didn't know whether to be insulted or angry.

Illyria spoke to the darkness.

"The slayers have become bold or stupid. You would dare disturb she who was the embodiment of battle and the ecstasy of death! You would disturb she who commanded millions into battle!"

"We have one last battle for you Old One." A slayer said in the darkness. She lit flair. The blood white light illuminated the dark face of Surayya Rasta Atreides. Even from a dozen meters away Illyria could see the orange glow of their eyes. They were under the joining spell. The sheer power of the Destroyer looked out from their eyes.

Illyria stepped back a little. She didn't even know she had flinched. Surayya continued to speak as she made her way up the cliff side wall.

"Ragnarok is approaching." Surayya said. "The Twilight of the Gods is here. " She said referring to their plan to lure the Old Ones to "Her Graceful Measure" and release the Destroyer upon them.

A girl appeared in the mouth of Illyria's cave. The night was moonless. Her form was only a shadow in the inky black night. Illyria felt the power that radiated from her. Illyria struck first. Her fist shattered the cave wall sending rocks into the valley below. Surayya pivoted. Her biology sped up by a factor of ten thousand fueled by a spice derivate special to only the slayers. Surayya's foot slammed into the side of Illyria's head knocking her against the cave wall. Illyria waved her hand stopping time. Surayya stepped through the energy field in _real time_. She held the blade of her scythe against Illyria's throat.

"Not today, Old One." She said. "Today, the source of _your_ power is the source of _my_ power." Surayya leaned in close to Illyria and whispered to her. "Join us in the _Gotterdammerung_ and you will live, join us and you will be restored."

Other slayers had made it to the cave. In the dark, all of their eyes glowed with a unearthly orange-white energy.

"What would you have me do _slayer_? Illyria muttered in contempt.

"To raise a god, you must kill a god." Surayya said. "To release the source, we need the head of a Hell-god."

Illyria thought for a moment.

"You want me to kill Glorificus?" She asked. Illyria began to see the bigger pattern. Glorificus was an insane hell god. She was one of the original One Ones that had refused the summons to return to the source. Her brain was special. It could eat away at the magics that held the Destroyer bound in his tomb.

"Do it yourself!" Illyria said as she moved to stand up. Surayya rushed in, grabbed Illyria by the throat and pushed her back down. Her thumb pressed in on Illyria's windpipe.

"Only a god can kill a god, _permanently_." Surayya hissed into Illyria's ear. The other slayers were approaching. Each held a scythe in their hands.

Surayya spoke with menace in her voice. "I guarantee you Illyria, we can cause you _pain_."

Illyria considered her options. She swallowed her pride and agreed.

Illyria returned her mind to the present. Now she was here on the "Sietch Tabr" with the ancient corpse of Buffy Summers. She could see Arrakis growing larger in the ship's view screen. She looked back and forth between the view screen and the Buffy corpse. She knew what the Destroyer was planning. Her kind didn't have much time left in the world. Illyria ran her fingers gently over the desiccated cheeks of Buffy and thought to herself.

"This truly is the twilight of the gods."

Surayya walked the ground where the man in her vision had stood. Her raven black hair blew in the wind as she knelt down to examine the ground where he had stood. Days ago, thousands of people had died. Surayya had seen in her vision, a young man with the face of Xander Harris press a button and thousands drop dead. She was here to investigate.

"What happened here?" She asked herself. Something shiny caught her eye. It was a small coin. It looked custom made. It must have fallen out of the attacker's pocket. On one side of the gold coin was the silhouette of a woman's face. On the back of the coin were the letters "BTVS" and the words in Latin "**Is servo orbis terrarum multus" **loosely translated it read " She saved the world..a lot."

Surayya knew who she was after or more accurately the origins of who she was after. The cult of Buffy was alive and well. The only question that bothered her was, why would the scoobies kill ten thousand people?


	8. Chapter 8

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

**There existed no need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or a paradise of the mind — we could see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life — we went soft, we lost our edge.**

from "Muad'Dib: Conversations" by the Princess Irulan

Her senses lead her to the warehouse. Surayya rounded a corner and saw a flat square building that screamed demon activity. The building itself was ordinary. It was just another square brick warehouse in the Gammu industrial district.

For the last day she had been hunting the man she saw in her vision. She was hunting a man who was the splitting image of Xander Harris. It was nearing dark. Surayya tightened the stash around her field robe and made her way to the warehouse. She had her scythe in its carrier on her back.

She opened the door to the warehouse and looked around cautiously. She saw a small group of people gathered around something that looked like a ten foot crystal. However, the crystal was _moving_. It undulated in the dim room light. The people around it were tending it, or worshiping it, she couldn't tell. Surayya quietly closed the warehouse door behind her and crept along the wall.

She searched her pre-life memories for a clue to the crystal shape before her and found nothing. While she watched the crowd around the crystal shape parted to reveal a young man who struggled to escape. A white beam shot out of the crystal. The man went limp and appeared dead for long minutes. First his hand twitched, then his whole body. The dead man stood up. He began to listen to instructions from the crystal.

"Now I get it." Surayya thought to herself. She reviewed her vision. "The scoobies didn't kill anyone. Those people were already dead. The scoobies stopped them." Surayya felt proud. Thousands of years after the last slayer had disappeared; humans were still fighting the good fight. Then it hit her. Her mentat mind had retrieved the memories. There were mystical spores that caused the build-up of complex crystalline structures. These spores could network and share data. It was a hive mind. That wasn't one demon in the crystal. It was a community of millions of minds. Surayya slowly brought her scythe forward and readied for battle.

She was a tenth of a second away from attacking, when a rocket came out of nowhere and exploded against the crystalline structure. Surayya was thrown backwards. She slammed her head against the wall of the warehouse.

"What the hell?" Surayya thought.

Through her blurred vision she could see a small group of people sweep into the crystal worshipers. The fighting was brutal. Men and women died. There were pools of blood on the floor. Leading the pack was the dark haired man from her vision. Surayya was slowly getting back on her feet. Her thoughts betrayed her as she watched him fight.

"He's leaving his left flank open a lot." She thought criticizing his fighting style. Surayya was surprised she would even care. She didn't have to be a reverend mother to realize she was attracted to him.

The man she watched tossed a small grenade into the crystal. The explosion tore the crystalline shape in half. The glow it emitted flickered and died. He turned and looked at Surayya.

"What is this?" He said as he turned and looked at her. "One of Leto's creations?" He walked over to Surayya stopping well outside the striking range of a typical human. Surayya produced the coin she found in the city plaza and showed it to him.

"She saved the world a lot." Surayya said reading the Latin on the back of the coin.

"Beloved Sister, Devoted Friend." He said giving the counter sign. The man smiled. "I am Amir. Guardian of the sacred flame. We serve in blood, we serve in honor." His eyes remained cold. Why are you here?" He said.

"_Guardian of the sacred flame. " _Surayya had heard that phrase somewhere before. She desperately searched her memories. She remembered the Zoroastrian religious ceremonies from prehistoric Earth. Their religious ceremonies consisted of prayers to a sacred flame which represented the mutability of the divine. But something else echoed with that thought, something Illyria said to her earlier. Some believe that the world is still in darkness, while some believe the _revelation_ has come. Surayya took a shot. She had a fifty-fifty chance of responding properly.

"I know where the light of the world can be found." She said.

"Oh." Amir said as he frowned. "You're one of _them_."

Suddenly, a army burst into the warehouse. The troops surrounded the broken pieces of the crystal and Amir's troops. Amir turned to face a young woman dressed in black form fitting soft armor. Surayya could tell by her body language that she was a warrior as well.

"How many did you kill this time, Amir?" She said as she stopped near him. The woman surveyed the scene of carnage. "This is so typical." She said. Her voice was filled with disgust. The woman spotted the coin in Surayya's hand. "She saved the world a lot." The woman muttered to herself. She looked at Surayya and made a decision.

"My name is Arshia." She said. "And you must be Surayya Arteries of the resurrected slayers." Surayya nodded to her. Amir looked away in disgust.

"Artificial slayers you mean." Amir said. "Some biological nightmare cooked up in a Tleilaxu breeding tank."

"They have returned!" Arshia said. "The long darkness is over Amir. The slayers have returned!"

He looked at her. Surayya could tell that this was an argument they'd had many times. Amir was an owl still waiting for the return of the slayers. Arshia was a rooster who knew a new day had already dawned. Surayya watched the troops gather their weapons and knew that these new scoobies were lost and dangerous. She wondered if she should tell them about the return of Buffy Summers corpse to Arrakis. She decided not to until she knew more about them. One of Amir's soldiers walked up to him. The man moved strangely, as if he was in a trance. Part of Surayya's mind knew something was wrong but could not name it. The soldiers blade was out and arcing towards Amir's throat in a flash.

"No!" Surayya screamed to herself as she felt her body respond in a strange and different way.

Everything in the room froze. Surayya stood there trying to make sense of it all but she couldn't ignore the terrible conclusion. She casually walked over to the attacker and removed the knife from his hand. After searching the warehouse she located the small piece of crystal that was still active and crushed it under her boot. She returned to her original position and released time.

The attackers' fist slammed into Amir. The blade it held a moment ago was gone. The attacker looked confused. Whatever was controlling him a moment ago was gone.

Surayya mentat mind ruthlessly integrated all the data it had available and came to conclusion that terrified her but it was a conclusion she knew she would have to face after seeing their terrible power under the joining spell on "Her Graceful Measure."

"If given enough time," She thought. "The Slayers will evolve into the Old Ones."

Surayya's communicator begin to beep. It was Illyria. Surayya was careful to keep the face of the Old One hidden from the scoobies.

"It is done." Illyria said. "She has been fed to the source. The restoration has begun. You must return to Arrakis in three days." Surayya placed the communicator in her pocket and thought to herself

"Buffy is baking like cookie dough. Surely some _revelation_ is at hand."


	9. Chapter 9

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

All history is myth. Whether it is the myth of the noble savage or the myth of the flawless savior, history can only provide us the evidence of what happened but not the essence of events. Something is lost is translation. Historians, in the creation of their Histories must make a decision on where to place the value of actions. History then becomes a summation of opinions. Too often, the conversation between historians becomes the narrative it records.

Gods, Monsters and Men all casually, subtly blend into each other. Truly, they are just different points on the same spectrum. What then of the Slayers who are truly evolved from magic?

Paul Maud'dib

Notes from the Surayya Archives

"That was thousands of years ago." Amir said. He was explaining the history of the _scoobies_ to Surayya as they sat aboard the air carrier. The cityscape of Gammu rolled beneath them. "History reports that the money used from the destroyed watchers council was managed _very_ well by Giles. Over time we became _very_ profitable. The scoobies became independent of any government. We hunted monsters on our own terms."

"What happened to the slayers?" Surayya asked.

"History is not clear on that point. First there was the one slayer, then for a short time there were many slayers then one day there was none. There was a slayer named Fray, but that was thousands of years ago."

Surayya remembered what she knew about the last great Slayer – Vampire war on Earth. She knew both sides had been wiped out. There were no vampires or slayers on Earth for thousands of years. In the background, the scoobies were mutating into a secret society.

Amir looked over the city as the air carrier reached cruising altitude.

"The center does not hold." He said repeating an ancient poem from Earth. "Over time the scoobies split, then split again. The major factions are "The Order" and "The Legion." I belong to "The Order." We believe in discipline and the use of decisive force. We wait for the return of the _true_ slayer. Arshia is legion. She's a missionary. She spreads the good news of the new slayers.

Amir frowned. "They are such children." He said. Amir looked at Surayya. "We are still in darkness."

"We are the new slayers!" Surayya insisted.

"No." Amir said. "You are the indignant desert birds." He said quoting the old Earth poem again. You don't carry the mission, you don't hear the falconer, and you don't hear the Human race crying out for relief from the oppression of evil." Amir looked at Surayya. She could tell that he would never allow himself to hope that the slayers had really returned. It was easier to believe in the presence of darkness without end. For Amir and the others like him everything was a death trip. Surayya understood why he was such fierce fighter. Deep down inside He was hoping something would kill him and end his spiritual pain.

Surayya gently grasped the sleeve of his shirt and pulled herself close to him.

"I promise you Amir that we are the true slayers, that we have returned for the liberation of the Human race" She looked him in the eye and without the use of the Voice, armed only with her own sincerity, she said "Believe in us. The slayers are for you. The slayers would die for you. We would die for the World." She looked up at him with wide open eyes. "It's ok to believe."

Amir turned away. He spotted their second target of the morning rapidly approaching.

"Get ready _slayer_." He said. It's time to see what you're made of."

They sat in the center Fish Speaker Command. Around them were twenty or so high definition monitors showing the surface of Arrakis from the view of several orbital satellites. On one of the screens was an image send from a spotter on the ground. It showed Illyria sitting alone on the desert sand.

"We have go for launch." A nameless voice said.

Silently, quickly a flurry of hands worked over the lighted control panels. The women in the command center prepared the last of the Arteries House atomics for launch. After long moments, the final command was given. Deep within silos hidden for hundreds of years a cluster of twenty sub orbital missiles roared to life. From deep within the desert sands, twenty missiles, each armed with three individually targetable vehicles each carrying a twelve megaton warhead. Over seven hundred megatons of radioactive death arched into space then fell like burning ambers through the skies of Arrakis. Every missile was pointed at the place where Illyria sat.

The Fish Speakers were aiming for the Destroyer.

Lucilla looked out from her church. The parish board had appointed her the senior minister. The church of universal light was her home now. Lucilla looked out onto the evening sky. She saw the fish speaker missiles reentering the atmosphere. They sparkled like diamonds in the sky.

"_Picture yourself in a boat on a river"  
"With tangerine trees and marmalade skies."_

A strange song bubbled up from her pre-life memories.

"Watch." A voice said in her head said interrupting the strange song. It was the Destroyer. He was speaking directly to her. "Watch, observe and record." The Destroyer said. His voice was like a bass horn inside of her. Every part of her being vibrated with every word her spoke.

The missiles fell across the sky and from beneath the desert the Destroyer rose up to meet them. The Divine Worm broke the surface of the desert less than a hundred yards from where Illyria sat. The explosion of sand bothered her not in the least. The Destroyer reached upwards with its amplified senses and saw what the fish speakers had done. He was disappointed and amused. He saw the dirty things they had brought here to kill him.

He wished a cleaner sky.

One hundred meters above the Worm, matter flashed into energy. In less time than it took for an electron to cross the width of an atom the Destroyer reached out and transformed that energy. Out of that fire came a flock of doves. Hundreds of white doves appeared at the point of detonation they covered the skies of Arrakis. The gentle rustling of millions of wings could be heard in the air.

"Do you see now Lucilla?" The Destroyer asked within her. "Do you understand the true power of the slayer? You have more than the power to conquer. You have the power to _transform_."

She was moved by what she saw and meditated for hours on the meaning of that revelation.


	10. Chapter 10

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

All history is myth. Whether it is the myth of the noble savage or the myth of the flawless savior, history can only give us the evidence of what happened but not the essence of the meaning of events. Something is lost is translation. Historians, in the creation of their Histories must make a decision on where to place the value of individual actions. History then becomes a summation of opinions. In such a conversation, the vagaries of the Human context is lost and all we are left with is a ghost of the truth..

Paul Maud'dib

"An analysis of my father"

She was the first of the chosen but she didn't know it yet.

Sineya was a young strong fifteen year old woman. Her people were the Afar. Their land was rock and mostly desert terrain. Today was her rite of passage. The elders of the village had come for her just before dawn. They bound her and took her to the river. For hours she stood blind folded and bound as they chanted. She could hear the voices of the elder women speaking to her and the goddess.

From the Matriarch came:

**Guardian of the East**  
Hail to thee, Ancient ones of Air!  
Blow soft around us this night  
That the restrictions and pains of childhood  
Will be but memories in the mind of the adult

The next woman spoke:

**Guardian of the South**

Hail to thee, Ancient ones of Fire!  
Lend to us this night your passion and strength  
Envelope us in your warmth,  
That the fires of youth may be tempered within thee.

Sineya could hear her mother chanting:

Guardian of the West

Hail to thee, Ancient ones of Water!  
Wash over us with thy loving embrace  
That the sorrows of days long past  
Can give way to new understanding.

The Matriarch spoke again:

Guardians of the North

Hail to thee, Ancient ones of Earth!  
Stand firm with us in our purpose this night,  
That from the youth shall grow the adult  
Full of purpose and wisdom.

The semi circle of women then all spoke together:

**Blessed Lady of a Thousand Names**,  
You who art Maiden, Mother and Crone.  
Grant that this night the bindings of childhood will be broken  
And the bond between mother and daughter be strengthened.  
For the two, as so reflected throughout all creation,  
Are but images of thee in thy divine Trinity.

Blessed Be.

Blessed Be.

Blessed Be.

They unbound her and removed the blinders from her sight. She could see that the sun was starting to rise. The clear morning sky was lit with the soft pinks of the early morning glow. Sineya had one last thing to do before she would be allowed to return to the village with honor. One of the women handed her a sharp spear and shield. Today she would hunt her first lion. Sineya looked at her mother with a fleeting glance and could see the fear on her face. Other girls had gone on the hunt and had never returned. This was no time to be afraid. She focused her mind on the task at hand. The course of her whole life depended on her success. Sineya took the spear and shield and ran quickly into the jungle.

It was nearing noon now, and the hunt was not going well. Sineya had found a young lion in the savanna and had followed it into the woods. She saw it enter a cave. She waited hours for it to exit to no avail. Sineya slowly approached then slipped inside the cave.

What she saw there was pure horror.

Something with the shape of a man was leaning over the broken and bloodied body of the lion she had followed into the cave. The guts of the lion were torn open and its bloody entrails lay on the dirty cave floor. The creature in the cave fed greedily on the lion's body. Several times it stopped to slurp the still warm blood oozing from the lions neck. Sineya could smell the stench of death that came from the creature. She saw the bones of the other kills that littered the cave floor.

The creatures head snapped up as it noticed her. Twin sets of yellow eyes stared at her as it gauged the distance to the target. The monster attacked.

Her training kicked in. Sineya raised her shield as the monster slammed into her. Her small body was knocked backwards out of the cave and onto the ground. The creature stood in the cool darkness of the cave ready to strike. Its fangs dripped with blood. The Turok-Han looked at Sineya with pure hate in its eyes. It wanted to rip her tiny body apart.

She was not afraid. Sineya was a woman now. She had the responsibilities of a woman. To her people, the well being of the human race was a _personal_ responsibility. Every adult pledged everything they had to keep the world safe. She didn't even think about calling for help.

Sineya growled as she hoisted her shield and spear up and prepared herself to march into the jaws of death.

"Is that brave enough?" She heard a woman's voice say behind her.

Sineya didn't look back. She was seconds away from launching herself at the beast.

"She may be the one." Another woman said. "Let's end this."

Sineya launched herself at the Turok-Han with all of the fury her fifteen year old body could muster. A spear soaked in holy water for three days flew over her head. It jammed into the chest of the Turok-Han which exploded into a cloud of dust.

Sineya was shocked. She had heard rumors of these night monsters and killed and drank the blood of men. She never expected to meet one. Sineya turned to face the women who had saved her. They were the elders who had sent her on this hunt. She could see her mother standing in the back of the group. The relief was evident on her face.

"Is she the one?" a familiar voice said. Sineya searched for the voice. It was the voice of Fantai Garrayto her first true love. The young man was all of sixteen. He had mocha brown skin, short cropped hair and a thin but tough frame.

They were promised to each other years ago. Fantai was from a very old and established family. How old and established begged belief. Some said his family helped create the world.

"She may be. Only the Dark Men can tell." The Matriarch said. She was an ancient bit of woman. Her eyes were dimming but her stride was strong as she made her way with a cane made out of a shaft of polished wood sharpened to a point that could penetrate even the tough skin of a Turok-Han.

Sineya boldly walked up to the Matriarch. She looked into the woman's eyes. Sineya held her shield and spear before her.

"I am not complete great mother." She said. "I still have to conquer a monster."

The Matriarch smiled kindly. "Believe me child, you've passed. No one questions your courage. You have the heart of a warrior." The Matriarch paused and raised her voice for all to hear. "Let everyone know this. From this moment on know that Sineya Batu is now a woman!" She paused for a moment as she searched for her next words. "We have something else for you Sineya. If you pass this special test then you will become something more than just a hunter. You will become the savior of the world."

Sineya looked back at the Great Mother with awe and wonder.

They lead her to a cave at the edge of the forest. This was a haunted place, this was a sacred place. This was a place where wizards dwell. In English, the name of the place would be called "Dark rock" and the men who lived here would be called the "Dark Men". They were wizards that used the most awful and obscure magics. Since she was a child Sineya had heard terrible things about this place. This was a place where nightmares dwelled and demons came to die.

Sineya held the hand of her fiancée and the women herded her into the cave. The Dark Men gathered around her and sprinkled her with their powders. Flashes of gold and blue appeared where the powder touched her. The Dark Men withdrew and talked among each other. Minutes later they had their verdict.

"Chain her to the ground." One of them said. Sineya could tell that the man was afraid. It took her a moment to realize that he was afraid of her.

Afraid of her? Sineya looked at Fantai. He could tell that she was puzzled. Fantai walked up to her held her as the Dark Men finished wrapping chains around her and securing her to the ground.

"Everyone says that my family helped create the world." Fantai said. He looked at her with a far away expression on her face. "It is true. We did, or more accurately I did." He smiled to himself as he thought of other things far beyond the Earth. "Sineya, I've loved you before you were even born."

Fantai stood in front of Sineya. His voice was calm now.

"There is a war that spans the heavens itself. There are things in this world that wish to destroy all life as you know it and establish their own order. An apocalypse is coming. My apocalypse is coming. I will not survive this life as you know it."

Fantai walked up to Sineya and kissed her softly on the cheek.

"Will you help me, Sineya?" He begged her. "Will you help me save the world?"

"Yes." Sineya said without hesitation, without fear. "I am a woman now. There is nothing I can't do."

Fantai smiled as he stepped slightly away from her. This next part required space for the energy to jump. Fantai ran the tip of his thumb along his skin from the top of his head to his navel. His skin spit apart and something impossibly bright spilled into the cave.

The soul of the Destroyer hesitated for one moment then slammed into the tender young body of Sineya Batu.

Her screams could be heard from outside the cave. The elders of the village had been ushered outside. Sineya's mother, wracked in fear spoke to the Matriarch.

"The other girls that were brought here." She said. "Did they go into the cave and become what we needed?" She asked.

"No." The Matriarch said. "They went into the cave and they died."

He only gave her a portion of himself. When he had finished he closed the flesh suit he wore sealing his terrible energies inside. Fantai walked over to Sineya. Her head was down. Her body was slumped. Smoke curled off of her flesh. Fantai approached her with fear and trembling. He had come to love this one.

Sineya spasmed as she ripped one of the chains out of the ground. The other chains that held her creaked as she pulled against them. She lifted her head and stared straight at Fantai. For the longest, he could see nothing human in her eyes. Sineya growled like an animal. The portion of himself that he had given to her was still burning through her flesh. It was changing her cells, her bones, muscles and blood. Sineya would be faster, stronger and no longer only human. He would be able to speak to her in her dreams now and even to the generations that would come after her.

It took hours but eventually the soul of Sineya was returning.

"So you are the great protector?" Sineya asked Fantai.

"Yes." He said as be begun to free her from her chains.

She felt disorientated. Her mind had a million questions. She could barely think straight. There was a power coursing through her that demanded she hunt the dead and any other enemies of the world.

The First Slayer was born.

As he moved around her body freeing her, Fantai could feel her presence vibrating just beneath his skin.

"What shall I call you?" Sineya asked him as he moved in close to her.

"You may call me beloved." He said.

Under the sands of Arrakis, the God Worm shifted as it chased away the ghost of ancient memories.


	11. Chapter 11

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

**The problem of leadership is inevitably: Who will play God?**

Muad'Dib (From the Oral History)

Amir was a good two inches taller than Surayya, but she didn't let that intimidate her. She reviewed his dark smooth face and closely cropped beard. Whenever she could, she stole glances at his warm brown eyes. They had been traveling for hours in the close quarters of the thopter. She could smell his musk. It was not at all unpleasant.

"Male and Female, boys and girls, nature does not play fair." She thought to herself. She knew what her body was telling her. She was attracted to Amir in a powerful way. "I guess this is what the ancients called chemistry."

The thopter hovered above a huge hole that went hundreds of meters onto the ground. Around the edges were thousands of humans that were under control of the crystalline demons.

"Fire!" Amir ordered. A volley of missiles launched from the thopter and slammed into the crevasse below. Black oily smoke billowed upwards. Screams could be heard coming from the people below. Surayya snapped out of her daydream.

"What the…" Surayya said. She stared in wide eyed shock at the devastation. She could see tiny figures running about in the grey black smoke. Some of them were on fire.

"The crystal demons can control any organic life form near it. This was the only way to be sure." Amir said.

Below, most of the human figures lay motionless on the ground. Amir checked his weapons as he prepared for the second phase of the assault. He wore a standard weapons vest. In it, he held a razor sharp combat knife, two 50 caliber handguns, and a string of fragmentation grenades. He strapped his favorite lasgun to his back.

Amir's troops launched themselves from the thopter. Twenty battle harden troops slammed into the milling crowd below.

"This is insane" Surayya thought.

"This is who we are _slayer." _Amirsaid. "This is the way of the _order_. We defeat darkness with _decisive_ _force_." Amir jumped from the thopter landing dead center of the chaos.

"_Forgive them Surayya. They know not what they do. They are just lost." She_ could hear the voice of the Destroyer in her head. _"Help them, guide them. Let them know that they are not alone anymore. Let them know that indeed this is a new day. Help them to accept the fact that my return to the world is an apocalypse. My return is a revelation."_

Surayya grabbed her scythe and hurled herself into the fray. She didn't know what she would do but she knew she had to find a way to bring the _scoobies_ back into the light.

"May I come in?" She asked.

Motorria opened the door for Reverend Mother Angela Basara. It was evening on Arrakis. Soft golden white light filled Motorria's modest home. Motes of dust floated in the air. Basara could smell something cooking in the kitchen that smelled of cinnamon and spice. Motorria looked the tall woman over once. She could see none of her figure hidden beneath the dark aba robes. Motorria focused on her face for a moment. She had not seen Basara since Surayya had pulled her out of the air ducts of "Her Graceful Measure."

"I can assume you're not a vampire?" Motorria asked as she motioned for Basara to sit.

Basara's face flushed which was bad form for a Bene Gesserit. The Bene Gesserit considered the honest showing of emotions to be a weakness. She knew about the recent attack on Motorria and who had ordered it. Basara trembled with trepidation. How would she tell the slayer that the Mother Superior had ordered the attack? How would she tell Motorria that the Bene Gesserit was infected with vampires and that the Mother Superior was a vampire who also had the Gem of Amara?

Basara opened her mouth to speak. Motorria cut her off.

"The Bene Gesserit are infected with vampires. Most likely the Mother Superior is infected as well." Motorria said flatly. "Since the Mother Superior visited "Her Graceful Measure" before it was cleared by the slayer fleet, she is clearly the source of the infection and there is a greater than eighty percent probability that she also has the Gem of Amara."

Motorria had figured it all out. Basara's mouth tried to work but nothing intelligent came out. Motorria tried to assure her.

"I am trained in the mentat ways." She said.

Basara adjusted her body language to appear at ease. Motorria had known all of this and still let her into the house. Perhaps Motorria would be open for what she had come to suggest.

"Recently, I have seen things I never would have thought to exist." Basara began. "I have seen vampires, slayers and now a god, a real god, living on Arrakis. " She said casually. Basara remembered the horror of the vampires that had occupied "Her Graceful Measure." The sheer viciousness of them haunted her even now. "As I understand it, this Destroyer, this God of the Slayers, has ordered you to carry a being made from the genes of Paul Muad'dib and a Buffy Summers."

Motorria nodded her head in agreement.

Basara wondered what good would come from mixing Paul's highly tailored genes with Buffy's wild mongrel genes. The Arteries were the end result of thousands of years of selective breeding all carefully guided by the Bene Gesserit. Buffy had one singular quality and that was she was a slayer.

Motorria watched the wheels spinning behind Basara's eyes. She had a pretty good idea of what she was thinking.

"Buffy was something else before she became a slayer." Motorria said. "She was a potential. The spirit of the Destroyer knew how to find her."

"And Paul was the 'Kwisatz Haderach', the shorting of the way. Paul could see through higher spatial dimensions." Basara said. A heavy silence descended on the room.

"I don't like the sound of that combination." Motorria said.

Basara snapped back to the reason she was here.

"Where is your security?" She asked. Motorria knew the question was rhetorical.

"You carry the mandate of heaven in your womb, yet no one is here to protect you." Basara said. "Surayya is absent, Illyria is away and the slayer fleet can't spare a few body guards to keep you safe? Do a prime computation mentat."

Motorria already had the answer to that question. She had it the night the Bene Gesserit vampire attacked.

"Something is out there, something huge, something we haven't thought of." Motorria said. "The Slayer Fleet is under siege from something so huge that it keeps them from focusing on Arrakis and the Destroyer is refusing to interfere on my behalf. So what do I do?"

"Flee." Basara said as she leaned forward for emphasis. "Flee into the desert for protection. Hide at Sietch Kindle for your sake and the child."

Basara followed Motorria's eyes to a set of bags she had packed away in the corner.

"I'm already packed." Motorria said. "Let's go."


	12. Chapter 12

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

"Let me tell you something about Buffy, I've been through more battles with Buffy than you all could ever imagine. She's stopped everything that's ever come up against her. This girl's died two times and she's still standing. You're scared, that's smart, you got questions, you should, but don't doubt her motives. You think she's all about the kill, and then you take the little bus to battle. I've seen her heart, this time not literally and I'm telling you right now, she cares more about your lives than you will ever know and you gotta trust her, she's earned it."

Xander Harris

"Dirty Girls" S07E18

Buffy was mostly muscle and bone. Her skin was still growing back into place. Her corpse was a true horror. She looked like something she would have slayed in her earlier life. She could feel her body regenerating.

She floated in a warm sea of pseudo amniotic fluid sealed tightly away in a sac deep inside the God Worm of Arrakis. Everything was hazy and distant to her. She had no idea where "here" was. She was in the grey zone. She was in that grey hazy space between dreaming and awake where everything felt good and warm and safe. She was limp and floating and felt nothing. She didn't even breathe. The hundreds of sandtrout that encased her body extracted oxygen from the fluid surrounding her and breathed for her. The very same liquid that provided her air was also a rich bounty of spice. The Destroyer hummed its mystical energy into the still regenerating body of Buffy as it pumped massive amounts of spice through her restructuring veins. His energy and the spice from the last sandworm worked together to force to the surface Buffy's pre-death memories. Thoughts randomly came to her as microscopic tendrils gently rebuild her brain one synapse at a time from a store of stem cells secreted by the sandworm.

"_Hello God, it's me Buffy. Are you there?"_

Buffy could feel the presence of something huge and powerful and ancient. To her, it felt like she was snuggling with a massive bear that held her close in its warm soft bosom.

"_I am here daughter. Be not afraid." _Buffy head a great peaceful voice speak to her.

"I'm not afraid." Buffy said. "In fact, I'm bored. Can I get cable in here?"

The thing that had built the stars from its bones, had lived for billions of years and fought an ongoing war against the forces of darkness was puzzled.

"Are you giving your creator a hard time?" He said.

Buffy answered him in her own way.

"You are only the source of my _slayerness_." Buffy said. "I am so much more than that."

"I think she wanted to be a fireman when the floods roll back." A second voice, _a female voice_, chimed in. It was Sineya.

"I see." The Destroyer said. "When we are done with you, you will be reborn as _something_ _new, something dangerous."_

"I'm already dangerous." Buffy said. "Have you ever seen my kill record?"

"Against what? Disembodied sprits and half breeds?" The Destroyer said referring to The First and vampires in general. Some refuse to accept the revelation of my presence here on Arrakis. Some embrace it totally and walk into the light of the new day. Owls and Roosters they call themselves. Know this Buffy Summers, when we are finished here you will be _the_ rooster. "

"Announcing what?" Buffy asked.

"The absolute end of the demon age. Now and forever. To demon kind, you will be _a permanent apocalypse_. What do you have to say now?" The Destroyer asked.

"Oh." She said.

Still, something else was bothering her. Something she forgot to ask the Great Spirit that hovered over her.

As she floated between being and nothingness, they were rebuilding all of her, her soul, her body and her memories. The corpse of Buffy Summers dreamed of conversations with dead people.

She remembered walking in a graveyard at night. She had just started her patrol when she came across an undead rising fresh from its grave. She knelt by the grave as fist burst upwards from the dirt.

"Here we go." She said.

With one hand Buffy pulled Holden up from his grave which confused his vampire brain briefly. Holden slammed his fist into Buffy's face forcing her to drop him. Holden landed on his feet and tried to end her with a roundhouse kick to the face. Buffy blocked it with both arms before she returned his jab with a right punch to his jaw. It didn't matter. Holden grabbed her and slammed her head against a tomb stone. He was about to drain her blood when he recognized her.

"Buffy? Buffy Summers?" He asked. "It's me Holden Webster. We took European History together."

Buffy was about the answer when the scene shifted.

She was standing next to Spike in a cavern under Sunnydale. A river of fire was flowing out of him. Buffy felt herself grasping his hand.

"I love you." She said.

"No you don't." Spike said. "But thanks for saying it."

Their hands touched. They were bonded by a _nonconsuming_ fire.

The scene shifted.

She lay on a bed in a crappy one room apartment in the bad part of town. She had just finished a twelve hour shift and she was bone tired. Anne, also known as Buffy, rested in her Los Angeles apartment. She tried to sleep but she couldn't. One image haunted her mind. It pricked at her whenever she closed her eyes. It was the look on Angel's face when she stabbed him through the heart and sent him straight to hell. He looked so surprised and so hurt. And even if it was for a good cause, to save the world, the thought of her great love suffering a brutal damnation because of her was too much to bear. Every night, as she did since running away from home, she cried herself to sleep.

"That's it." The Destroyer thought. "We're getting closer to the soul of her."

Sineya agreed.

"She has been gone for so long. Do you have enough to reconstruct her?" Sineya asked.

"Because of you, I have unrestricted access to the past. I have used these memories before. It was I that revealed her future memories of Arrakis to her." The Destroyer said. "It was I that revealed Tailos Three to Leto."

In her mind, Buffy engaged her conversation with dead people, but after ten thousand years they were all dead people.


	13. Chapter 13

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

**Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife — chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here."**

from _Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib_ by the Princess Irulan

She killed three of them without thinking.

She stabbed the first one in the back. As it twisted around to see what had stung it, Surayya yanked her scythe out of its bloody spine, turned the scythe blade side up, and gutted the zombie behind her in one smooth stroke. She flicked the blood out of her hair as she flipped her scythe over and rammed the sharp end into the sternum of the third zombie. She did a half turn and decapitated it cleanly.

She was in the heat of battle.

Around her were thousand of zombies, controlled by the crystalline demons. Amir's men were holding them back with grenades and flame throwers but they were nowhere near the source of the thing that controlled them. Surayya coughed as smoke filled the narrow tunnel. No matter how many rounds they fired or how many zombies they fried the dead just kept coming.

Amir was busy calling for reinforcement on the hand held communicator. His men were passing a bulky rectangle box to him on the front line. Amir had the box open when one of the living dead attacked him. Surayya rushed over to him. She kicked the zombie off of him and nearly cut it in half. It took her a moment for her to pull the bloody scythe out the rock wall in which it was embedded.

Amir lay dazed on the ground. He pointed at the box his men had brought him. Surayya quickly bent down and opened the case. Inside of it was a relic from another age.

"This is what you brought?" She asked him. "Your key to the universe is brute force?" The question was rhetorical she didn't wait for an answer. Surayya grabbed the device from the box and primed the charge. Her pre life memories taught her what to do. Surayya flipped the arming switch as she placed the body of the main crystalline structure in the targeting sights. She pressed a single button and fired the multi kiloton missile.

She was a slayer with a rocket launcher. Some things never change.

Just before the missile hit the target the men hit the ground and she threw her body over Amir. The explosion rocked the tunnel sending fire and body parts raining down on them. The zombies dropped dead. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air. She could hear men in the background wrenching.

She lifted her face from his a few inches to see how badly he was injured.

"I've had enough of this." Surayya thought to herself.

Her communicator beeped. It was the "Sietch Tabr." It was in overhead orbit above the planet. Her time was up. She had to get back to Arrakis for the rebirth of Buffy. Her ride was here and she had to go. The thought of Buffy gave her an idea.

Surayya relaxed her muscles as she let the memories from another life come over her.

"I was once called "Little Miss Likes to Fight."" She said. "But, rocket launchers won't always get it done. I had to blow up entire school once just to kill an Old One." She was paraphrasing her best Buffy. "Our war is against spiritual wickedness and not just the flesh. "

Amir could not believe what his senses were telling him. The woman before him was the perfect reenactment of Buffy Summers down to her body language and tone. He knew of the events of which she spoke. He had viewed the ancient records.

"Bene Gesserit trickery." He said as he pushed her off of him and stood and brushed the dust from his uniform. "The Tleilaxu could have bred a dozen clones of her with restored memories at Letos command."

"I'm sorry you all became so lost." She said. "I'm sorry that the memory of our true mission was buried in time." Surayya stepped closer to him. "There is something you must see so that you can know that we are truly at the start of a new day." Surayya took Amir's hand as a light enveloped them.

"Buffy Summers is returning to Arrakis." Was the last thing the men heard as Surayya and Amir teleported out of the tunnel and directly into the bridge of the "Sietch Tabr."

Heads turned as they appeared on the bridge. Surayya didn't wait to explain.

"Get me Illyria." She ordered. Surayya headed directly to the captains chair. A young Fish Speaker scurried out of her way as she sat down. Illyria appeared on the view screen embedded into the arm rest of the captain's chair.

"You have thirty hours until the rebirth." Illyria said without preamble.

"I'll be there." Surayya said firmly. "What's been happening on Arrakis?" She asked.

"The Fish Speakers attacked God with nuclear weapons." Illyria said flatly.

Surayya's face went white. "What happened!" She demanded to know.

"They _failed_." Illyria answered.

The bridge was silent for long seconds while Surayya took in the shocking news. The Fish Speaker crew avoided all eye contact with her. They found extremely fascinating things to look at on their screens.

"Helm!" Surayya barked. "Set course for Arrakis. Full Speed." The "Sietch Tabr" jumped into the dark.

Hundreds of meters below the surface of Gammu Amir's men struggled to understand what just happened. Amir's first lieutenant was reporting to Arshia who was still on the command flyer.

"Both are gone." The lieutenant said. "She just took him and disappeared, some sort of magic I suppose." He said.

Arshia didn't like the sound of that. Amir was her best field commander. Now he was kidnapped by someone claiming to be a slayer.

"Get the troops back to the command carrier." She said over the radio. "I'm calling an all hands muster. I think it's time we paid a visit to Arrakis." Arshia cut the channel as she switched to a fleet wide frequency.

"This is Commander Arshia Morgan of the Human Alliance, flash traffic, fleet orders, end current operations, break orbit, rendezvous at Arrakis, combat alert, out."

Throughout the galaxy, thousands of battleships changed course towards Dune.

Motorria watched the small ship flutter on the horizon. The stubbly silver dot fluttered at the edge of her vision.

"Someone is following us." Motorria said casually to Basara. They had abandoned Motorria's home only hours before. They were at the edge of the desert. If someone was coming to kill her she would easily stand out. Even in the stilsuits you could tell which of the two was the pregnant one.

They ditched their small hovercraft and hid in a outcropping of rock. Basara brought up her lasgun as she leaned against a bolder. Motorria had her lexan knife out and ready. Anyone who thought they would have their way with two helpless women was in for a rude surprise.

They heard footsteps on the rocks behind them. Someone very fast and very nimble was coming at them at full speed. Whoever it was, it was making no attempt at stealth. Basara saw the short stocky figure first. She saw a flash of a dust covered stillsuit briefly between the rocks.

Basara fired.

A huge chunk of rock exploded where the laser from her gun hit. The attacker was _fast. _Before she could shift her lasgun the attacker had Basara pinned against the rock behind her. Motorria inhaled as she supercharged her bloodstream.

The attacker left one arm against Basara's throat as she removed her stillsuit mask with the other.

It was Lisa.

She was with Motorria and Surayya when they were trapped on Arrakis during the Fish Speaker occupation, she was there when they performed the joining spell, she was there when they released the Destroyer and she was there when all three of them had resigned their commission in the slayer fleet aboard the "Memories of Dawn."

"Moto, give a girl a break. Let me know when you're going to flee into the desert." She said sarcastically. "Do you think you're Paul Muad'dib?"

Lisa still wore her blond hair short. Her face still showed a slight scarring from the assault on Tailos Three. She was a welcome sight. Motorria relaxed her nervous system as she let her reflexes return to normal. Lisa removed her arm from Basara's throat as she walked over and hugged Motorria.

After a few minutes someone said "C'mon let's get out of the sun."


	14. Chapter 14

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

**God created Arrakis to train the faithful.**

from _The Wisdom of Muad'Dib_ by the Princess Irulan

God woke early that morning.

The Destroyer surveyed the nearby desert of Arrakis and found it clean of any Fish Speaker influence. It had to be. Today was a special day. Today Buffy Summers would be born again and the fate of the Slayers would be determined. The Destroyer remembered what he had told Buffy while she was incubating.

"You will become a permanent _apocalypse_." He told her. But he didn't tell her the whole story he felt he didn't have to. The Slayers were _his_ weapon against the rebels. He created them; he used them for thousands of years against those who resisted his rule.

The Destroyer knew what the future held. He knew he wouldn't remain in this universe forever. He knew that soon he would be leaving Arrakis and the mortal world. He was concerned about the evolutionary direction of the slayers her would leave behind.

He knew two things were certain. Billions of years of personal experience had taught him that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely. His slayers had a fair amount of his power and as time went on they would gain even more. In many ways, they were like the Old Ones. His slayers were innocent and willing to follow any visions he sent their way. Bet he knew as time went on the women who served as slayers would want their own destiny and would grow tired of doing his bidding.

God had no problem with free will.

It was his contention that a willing slave was far better than an angry prisoner. If the women who served as his slayers wanted their own destiny then let it be. If over time they chose to return, He would welcome them back with love and open arms. What concerned him the most were the dreams of the lost, the dreams of those slayers who had all of his power but none of his calling. The dreams of those slayers who would rampage through the universe killing Human and demon alike. Any blood spilled would be on his hands and his return to the world would have been in vain.

The sands of Arrakis blew lightly over kilometers of flat hot brown sand. The sky above was a cloudless deep sapphire blue. The airs above the sands were pure, clean and dry.

Illyria ended her repose.

She had been sitting motionless for three days while the corpse of Buffy Summers gestated in the core of the God-Worm. She remembered what she had told the fish speakers who had ferried her and Buffy from Earth.

"Our Gods are not so different. In the end, they all demand more than we can spare." She had told them. Never truer words were spoken. Illyria knew that it was near time for Buffy to be born again. She knew the Destroyer would have one last task for her.

How she fared would determine the fate of the universe. If she could do this thing the Destroyer had asked of her, Arrakis, this galaxy and all the stars in the universe would be destroyed. Everything would be wiped out of existence by the unleashing of such forces that made the Old One tremble in fear.

All she had to do was kill Buffy.

The small, stubby ship entered orbit around Arrakis. Surayya sat in the captain's chair waiting for the holy desert of the destroyer to rotate into position. Something grabbed her and pulled her off the bridge. Surayya felt her teleportation powers self activate. She opened her eyes and saw Illyria standing there against the desert backdrop. Surayya heard the destroyer speaking in her head.

"_You are the arbiter of the change." It said to her. "What you see here is the new revelation, the first apocalypse of the new age. When it is done, spread the word of what you see here today. Tell the others; tell the slayers that this is my will."_

Surayya did not understand. She knew that Buffy had made arrangements to be reborn in this age. Surayya used her mentat training and what facts she had available to what was happening here. Buffy was not here because Motorria had extracted DNA from both her and the temporal reconstruction of Paul Muad'dib.

Buffy was here because the destroyer had broken through her hidden memories and informed her that she had a son. Surayya was floored. The Destroyer must have known that the same magics that compelled Buffy to protect Dawn would compel her to protect a son she had never met.

"How long has the Destroyer been planning this?" Surayya thought to herself. He had millions of years in his white coffin to manipulate the world around him.

"When a sprit enters a corpse you get a vampire." She thought. "What do you get when the pure sprit of the Destroyer is used instead?" Surayya's head swam as she contemplated terrible possibilities.

The ground beneath Illyria and Surayya began to shake.

"Here we go." Surayya though.

"The ends of days have come." Illyria thought.

A budge appeared in the sand hundreds of meters across. The God-Worm was rising. Both Illyria and Surayya could fell the power emanating from the God-Worm. It was like static electricity. For a brief moment Illyria and Surayya locked eyes as a mutual recognition passed between them. They understood, they felt the common connection between them. Surayya remembered the words she hissed to Illyria the night she and the other slayers had come for her in her cave to yank her out of time to fight aboard "Her Graceful Measure."

"The source of _your_ power is now the source of _my_ power." She had said.

The worm was out of the ground now. Its open mouth formed a half circle above them. They could smell the sickly sweet smell of spice bellowing from its mouth. Time began to crackle and split for Surayya. She could see the faint images of events from the distant past and near future. Visions of Buffy hurling herself into a halo of light mixed with images of the green and white Arteries battle flag over a black and bloody battle field.

"Focus, focus!" Surayya fought to remain in the now. She used her Bene Gesserit training to overcome the prescient demands of the mystic spice.

She walked out into the desert sun from deep within the belly of the beast.

"_And I stood upon the sand of the sea; and I saw a beast rising out of the sea…" _

Surayya could not remember where that quote came from but she thought of it as she watched Buffy walk out of the mouth of the Destroyer.

She wore a white leatherette battle suit similar in nature to what Illyria wore. Buffy stood all of five foot ten. She had the figure and bearing of a young woman in her mid twenties. She even had the blonde hair which went past her shoulders and was tied into a bundle with something that looked like bone. Her face was calm and relaxed. Her eyes searched the horizon as if she was looking for something special. Surayya noticed her eyes. Buffy's eyes were orange-white. She was under the joining spell.

"_The source of your power is now the source of my power." _

Her own words came echoing back to her.

"_What you see here is the new revelation, the first apocalypse of the new age." _She remembered the words of the Destroyer. Buffy was not under the joining spell. Buffy _was_ the joining spell. She was a permanent nexus to the Destroyer.

"You see, it wasn't the power that corrupted the Old Ones." The Destroyer said to Surayya. "It was the fact that they were lost, that they forgot about me and leaned on their own understanding. This is what I fear will happen to my slayers over time. Without the persistent memory of me, the slayers will come to replace the Old Ones."

"You're leaving, aren't you?" Surayya asked. She was shocked and near panic.

"I have made arrangements." The Destroyer said. In order for the slayers to survive the next thousand years they have to make a choice." The Destroyer paused. Between Buffy and Illyria a portal with red edges opened. A small boy with dark skin, black hair and blue within blue eyes walked out of the portal and stood facing Buffy.

"Hello Mother." He said.

Buffy ran to him and swallowed him up in her arms. She looked at him for long moments.

"You're beautiful!" She said. Tears of joy formed in the corner of her eyes.

"You give moisture to the dead." The boy said. He was amazed.

"_The boy contains slayer gene markers as well as the genes for the 'Kwisatz Haderach' he has the ability to see through higher spatial dimensions. He and his descendants will always be able to find me." _The Destroyer said.

"His _descendants…" _The word stung at Surayya.

"_The slayers must change. Before, I choose women who I knew could take the pain. That was wrong. Before, the typical life of a slayer was brutish and short. But now the slayers live long enough to grow, to change, and to evolve. Being so, they must not be just random selectees. They must have some skin in the game, some equity in the world they protect."_

"They must become mothers." Surayya knew where the Destroyer was going with this. "His descendants will be able to see through _higher spatial dimensions_. They will always be able to find you. They will never become lost." Surayya smiled to herself. There was only one way his genetic material could be passed to the Slayers. "Looks like junior has a lot of long nights ahead of him." A thought occurred to her.

"Destroyer, If the slayers are to become mothers that means the offspring of the slayers will become a _race."_

_The Destroyer responded. "Their offspring shall number more than the grains of sands on Arrakis. Over time, the entire human race will become a race of slayers. That is the end game. Unless…"_

"Unless.." Surayya said. She didn't like the sound of that.

"_Unless the weapon cannot defeat the Old One. All destinies will be determined today. If Buffy cannot kill Illyria then I will leave the universe now destroying everything in the process. I will not leave an enemy behind._

Above, the skies of Arrakis grew dark. Within moments the entire world was pitch black. The only light available was the ghost lights from the chemical fires that burned in the belly of the holy sandworm.

"Why is the world so dark?" Surayya asked.

"_This is Arafel."_ The sandworm spoke. _"This is the cloud darkness of holy judgment." I have taken Arrakis out of the universe. Moments here will be days there. What happens here will determine if anyone will be able to return to the world."_

Buffy kissed her boy on his forehead and released him back into the portal from the future. She could clearly see him returning to a future war.

The portal closed. Buffy and Illyria rushed viciously towards each other. A flash of light and the sound of thunder could be heard throughout the planet.


	15. Chapter 15

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

When you think to take determination of your fate into your own hands, that is the moment you can be crushed. Be cautious. Allow for surprises. When we create, there are always other forces at work.

- Darwi Odrade

There was a darkness at noon.

From the entrance to the Church of Universal Light, Lucillia watched the clear blue sky above Arrakis turn dark. The sun had not moved. Without preamble or warning, blackness flashed across the sky. She could only see nothing. The darkness was complete. She placed her palm against the cold marble column at the entrance to the church to assure herself that the world was still there. It was. She had heard of this. She knew it from the writings of Leto the second.

This was _Arafel_ the cloud darkness of holy judgment. She remembered the ancient writing of an ancient tribe, the Hebrews, they were called. Arafel was used in reference to a prophet known as Job.

"…_and thou sayest, How doth God know? Can he judge through a dark cloud? Thick clouds are a covering to him that he seeth not; and he walketh in the circuit of heaven._

Those words were ancient before humans had even left the earth. She knew what _Arafel _really meant. It meant that _anything_, literally anything could happen now. This was a spot of time beyond the control of the divine. This was a undomesticated moment where the future of everything hung in the balance.

_Arafel_ was only used in reference to the Apocalypse. Lucillia began to pray for the continuation of the world.

Illyria kicked Buffy on the side of her face hard enough to shatter rock. Her skull fractured then instantly healed. Buffy grunted as she twisted through the motion of the kick. Her body _flicked_ into striking position. Buffy's fist caught Illyria under her chin hard enough to knock her off of her feet and several meters backwards. Illyria landed in the sand with a thump. She curled herself forward and waved one hand in the air before her stopping time. Sand particles stopped in mid-air. Surayya stood frozen on the darken landscape. The flickering of the reddish white chemical flames from the open mouth of the God-Worm slowed down. They now looked like slowly dancing crystals.

Illyria was now restored and at the height of her power. Flashes of raw energy sparked from her fists. They twisted in the air like electric snakes. Illyria scrambled to her feet. She was ready to kill.

Buffy stepped through the time field as if stepping through water. It had no effect on her. She stepped twice then leapt like a tiger at Illyria. Ten to the one hundred thirty-seven power terawatts of energy leapt from Illyria and struck Buffy dead center in mid-air. Her shields glowed. All of the power of the Destroyer was at her command. Buffy landed and grabbed Illyria by the throat with one hand as she placed her other hand on Illyria's head.

For some reason, Buffy felt compassion. She remembered the failures and foolishness of everyone she had ever loved. Poor scared Xander had summoned a dancing demon, Willow had gone mad and ripped the living skin off of a murder, Giles had conspired to kill Spike. Spike had tried to rape her. She remembered Angel and how she betrayed him and sent him to hell. She remembered trying to kill Anya. She held in perfect balance compassion and duty.

"I forgive you." Buffy said as she tore Illyria's head from her body and held it high for all to see.

Time collapsed to normal speed.

Surayya flinched. The darkness receded. Above, was the sun and a clear blue sky. Arrakis had returned to the world. Judgment had been rendered. The universe would be allowed to continue to exist because the Destroyer knew now that all would be well in his absence.

Slayers would be allowed to evolve and to spread their genes. In a few thousand years, the entire human race would become a race of slayers.

Buffy dropped Illyria's bloody head in the sand and walked directly up to Surayya. She looked at the dark skinned slayer and remembered _everything _from their time together. She remembered Surayya showing up in the magic shop with a knife to make sure Dawn never had children; she remembered beingwith her and the other slayers on top a giant sandworm and invoking the joining spell. Surayya felt like a sister. She felt like family.

"Surayya…" Buffy said barely restraining her anger.

"Yes." Surayya said standing as still as possible.

"Where is my son?" Buffy asked.


	16. Chapter 16

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

There exists no separation between gods and men; one blends softly casual into the other.

- Proverbs of Muad'dib

The women made it to Sietch Kindle just before dawn.

Lisa, Motorria and Reverend Mother Bastra walked into the Sietch entrance just as the first pink light of a new day began to light the horizon. The women were dirty and tired from their long trek. The water discipline was so fixed on them that none of them thought about taking a bath. It would be a vulgar waste of water.

In the three thousand years that the world had been ruled by Leto the second the bulk of Arrakis had began to bloom. Some places even had rivers and forests. However, there were some places where the desert still ruled and this was one of them. Sietch Kindle was of the old desert. Here, the water discipline was still in place. Here, were fremen who had not let themselves go soft under Letos rule. Sietch Kindle was where the conspiracy originated to destroy the Church of Universal Light, a churched based on the vampire Spike and his ability to transcend space and time.

Sietch Kindle was full of slayers.

The women were greeted by a thong of desert slayers. And on the face of each and every one of them was an image of awe.

"The Missionaria Protectiva would have a field day here." Bastra thought as she examined the looks of reverence on the faces of the slayers that surrounded them. "It would be far too easy to perform a variation of the Madonna myth with the Bene Gesserit as loving _friends_ eager to lend their support."

She chided herself for even thinking such thoughts. Bastra remembered that the chapterhouse on Gammu was infected with vampires. She remembered that there were other factions that would love to use the child for a darker purpose.

Bastra remembered the promise she made to Surayya aboard "Her Graceful Measure" while Surayya held the sharp edge of her scythe against her pulsing carotid artery. She swore an allegiance to the slayers. It was a promise she intended to keep.

Motorria eyed Bastra. She knew what the Bene Gesserit was thinking.

"It's good to keep your promises." Motorria said flatly.

Bastra nodded in agreement.

From the back of the Sietch there came a commotion. Freemen and slayers parted as a small knot of young girls pushed their way to the front of the cave. The girls were teenagers. They looked to be only twelve or thirteen years old. They were about the same age as Motorria and Surayya were when they were drafted by Leto to become slayers.

"What have you done?" The lead girl screamed as she rushed at Motorria with a knife. Everything appeared to move in slow motion. The attack was clumsy and brutal. It was fueled by passion and rage. It had absolutely no skill or finesse. Motorria blocked the knife and attempted to push the girl out of the way only she wouldn't move.

The girl was as strong as her.

It was only after Lisa had jumped in along with the other slayers that the trio of young girls were restrained.

"What have you done?" The girl screamed again. Motorria could tell she was upset a scared. Her mind put all the pieces together. The conclusion shocked her.

"Tailos Three." She whispered to herself. Motorria spoke louder for Lisa and Bastra to hear. "The assault on Tailos three." Motorria's eyes were wide as the implications sunk in.

"I don't…." Bastra said about to admit her ignorance.

Motorria walked up to the frightened girls and ran her fingers softly over the cheeks of the one that had attacked her.

"During the assault on Tailos three fifteen hundred slayers died." Motorria looked at Lisa.

"When a slayer dies the next is chosen." Lisa said.

"Fifteen hundred slayers…" Lisa let that thought sink in.

"They didn't know, they had no idea what was happening to them. One day they're normal girls, the next day they're having nightmares about monsters. It must have been a horrific shock. They must have thought they were going mad." Motorria touched her forehead against the young girl. A tear formed in the corner of her eye.

"I'm sorry." She said. "I'm so sorry." Motorria hugged the girl close to her and waited for all of her anger to dissipate.

"Fifteen hundred…" Bastra said finally understanding. "So many lost slayers in the galaxy."

A young boy who looked all of five years old tugged patiently on the pant leg of Motorria. It took her a moment to notice him. She looked down and saw a face right out of her dreams.

The boy had black hair, dark skin and the strangest blue within blue eyes.

"Hello Mother." He said

Motorria noticed the open portal behind him. She used every ounce of her Bene Gesserit training to remain calm.

"I can find them." He said.

Motorria couldn't help but stare at him. He looked so much like his father.

"I can find them." He said again. "I can see through higher spatial dimensions. I know the women that carry the slayer gene markers. We can redeem the lost."

The entire cave was quiet. Everyone knew who the boy was. They looked at him then looked at Motorria who was still pregnant.

"But that will have to wait until after I am born." He said kindly. Motorria smiled at his odd sense of humor.

"You're beautiful." Motorria said to her son.

He smiled. "I love you too mother." The boy paused a moment. His eyes scanned the cave as if looking for something. His eyes locked onto an old freman near the back of the crowd. He looked back up at Motorria.

"This is where I change the time line." He said. The boy flicked a beautifully engineered stake from his vest pocket. It impacted the old freman he had spotted well over twelve meters away. The old freman exploded into a cloud of dust.

"_They_ are on the move." He said firmly. "Be aware, mother. The darkness is already here." The boy turned to reenter the portal. But just before he entered the portal back to the future, his stern visage broke. His mouth twisted down into a frown. His eyes began to water. Motorria could see the pain on his face.

"I miss you Mother. The war has been to hard." He said as he stepped through the portal back to the future. Motorria would not let him get away. She released the new born slayer and ran over to the portal. She wanted to catch him, to keep him and protect him. The portal closed but not before she got a look at what was on the other side.

The vision chilled her to the bone.

Motorria hobbled back over to Lisa and Bastra.

"What did you see?" Lisa asked. Everyone in the cave strained to hear the conversation.

"I saw millions of them running across the sands of Arrakis." Motorria said as if her voice would break.

"I saw millions of Turok-Han and a sky red with flames."

Later that day, the sky went black. The blue Arrakis sky had disappeared. All they could see were flashes of light at the horizon. They heard the distant sounds of thunder and felt the ground tremor beneath their feet.

"This is _Arafel_ ." Motorria said. "This is the cloud darkness of holy judgment.

The slayers lit a torch so that their light would shine in the darkness.

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" Bastra thought


	17. Chapter 17

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

Our most effective costumes are the assumptions and preconceptions the audience has about us.

Rheinvar the Magnificent

"Where is the moon?" Surayya asked. The crew of the "Sietch Tabr" had called her on her field communicator. They were hysterical. Arrakis had disappeared from the universe for the better part of three days and then out of nowhere and just as suddenly reappeared in its orbit. The small inner moon of Arrakis was not even perturbed in its orbit.

Arrakis had experienced a singular and precise use of profound magic.

Surayya listened to the Fish Speaker crew report to her. She would fill them in on the details later. She knew that elsewhere on the planet the women of Fish Speaker command were similarly distressed. Surayya would deal with them later. Before her, she still had a pretty intense Buffy, the God-Worm in the background and lying on the desert sand was the bloody and decapitated body of Illyria.

Surayya prioritized.

She turned to Buffy and met her green eyes with an equally intense stare.

"I don't know where your son is right now and quite frankly, that's not my problem." Her tone was flat and direct. Buffy may have the powers of a god but she still had the body of a human. Surayya could easily read her body language. Her Bene Gesserit training served her well. Buffy was more anxious and afraid than angry. Surayya felt that Buffy could easily be handled.

The orange white light faded from her eyes as the powers of the Destroyer receded back into her. Buffy was still focused, but her tone carried a softer edge.

"I've come so far…" She said. Surayya could clearly hear the pleading in her voice. That's when she noticed the stains from Illyria's blood on Buffy's clean white armor. Surayya watched as the armor absorbed Illyria's blood into itself. In moments, Buffy's suit was pure white again. That's when Surayya noticed. Buffy was not wearing armor.

That thing that she wore was her skin. Surayya could see the faint outline of Buffy's breasts under the puffy white armor which formed a smooth unbroken seal to the base of Buffy's neck.

"Why would the Destroyer leave her exposed like that?" Surayya thought. Buffy's armor was perfect except that it left the head, hands and feet exposed.

"If she was perfect, she would be me." The destroyer said. Surayya could hear the God-Worm in her head. "Buffy has all of the powers of an Old One but none of the crazy. She still carries the mandate of heaven. Look at her closely Surayya. This is what the slayers _may_ become in only a few thousand years." Surayya understood. The Destroyer had left Buffy with some measure of her humanity.

"My best friend is missing." Surayya said. "Her name is Motorria and she is carrying your son."

Surayya and Buffy looked at each other a long time.

"Well, I think we should go find them." Buffy said after a while.

"Yes." Surayya agreed. "But first, there is someone I would like you to meet." Surayya flipped open her communicator, making sure that the built in camera has a nice view of Buffy.

"Amir, this is Surayya. Can you hear me?" she said.

"Yes." Answered a male voice from "The Sietch Tabr."

"I have someone here I want you to talk to. She is a rooster. She is the rooster. Her mere presence announces the end of the demon age. I'd think you'll believe her when she tells you that everything has changed. That this really is the start of a new day."

Surayya handed the communicator to Buffy

Reverend Mother Nisha Braun held the ancient book in her hands. Days ago agents of hers had broken into the royal library on Arrakis killing and drinking as many fish speakers as possible. They had inflicted terrible damage just to retrieve this one book from the royal library of Leto the second. This book held terrible power. This book held the power to destroy her ancient enemy.

She watched the demon before her pace back and forth on the bright red carpet that lined her study. If she wasn't already a vampire she would be highly agitated.

"So the first part of our plan is complete." The demon said. "Who knew the humans would be dumb enough to write down the procedures for the proper caring and tending of the slayers, and how to weaken them by means of a mystical injection." The demon paused for a moment before continuing. It did like to talk. It paced back and forth like a prosecutor delivering its final argument before a judge. "I'm not going to miss these humans after they'll all gone. We've been trying to kill them for thousands of years. Why do you think I went through all the trouble of creating the Wolf, Ram and Hart in this dimension in the first place? Why do you think we went through all the trouble of moving the Deeper Well to Tailos Three? So that a bunch of snot nosed kids could come along and ruin everything? This is it! I have had it with slayers, half-breeds and unstable Old Ones!"

The tan white demon was growing agitated. It was talking faster and faster. Nisha though it was kina funny, the arrogance of this little creature. It had appeared to her aboard "Her Graceful Measure" right after she had been turned by one of the few vampires remaining after the Destroyer had killed many of them. They had agreed to be partners together in destroying the world. The demon before was so arrogant that it wanted to refer to itself as the _senior_ partner.

Nisha wondered what sort of power the dusty old book she held in her hands held. Her pre-life memories helped her read the title of the book. It read **"The Slayer Handbook."** Scribbled in hard to read handwriting was a simple sentence. "Property of Kendra. Do not touch!"

Nisha laughed to herself. She planned on touching this book a lot.

"We are going old school on this!" The demon was still ranting. It took Nisha a moment to remember the phrase "Old School."

The demon stopped in front of her. "When the rituals are complete, we are going to open a Hellmouth here on Arrakis from which I will unleash every form of monster there is including the Turok-Han! There will be no amulets or half breeds to stop us this time!"

Nisha smiled. She was hungry. She ordered some random strangers brought in and killed.


	18. Chapter 18

All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

Battle? There's always a desire for breathing space motivating it somewhere.

- The Bashar Teg

He was the last of the Senior Partner and as such he deserved better than this. Tens of thousands of years had passed since his associates had lost their foothold on Earth. Now they were forced to wander the stars lurking in the shadow of humanity. They had watched with interest the rise of house Arteries and the rule of Leto the second. On more than one occasion they were tempted to make contact with Leto to form an alliance. They liked his brutal leadership style. Cooler heads prevailed. In the end, they remained hidden from humanity content to use others to achieve their ends until Leto unleashed the slayers and ruined their plans for Tailos three.

The Senior Partners had planned to use the Old Ones as shock troopers for their takeover of the galaxy but the damn slayers had gotten in the way. There were other forces they could bring to bear but only after they had exterminated every single slayer on Arrakis and beyond.

The Senior Partner stood over seven feet tall and was rail thin. He was covered in dark stained robes that hid the details of his true form. The occupants of this dimensional plane often confused him with a demon. He laughed at the concept. The Senior Partners despised demon kind and their kin and was nothing like them. Whereas, the Old Ones, the vampires, and the slayers were descendant from the Destroyer, the Senior Partners were in no way connected to them, they were not even from this universe. They were something _new_. They were something _alien_.

Across multiple dimensions and multiple worlds the power of the Senior Partners remained but he was the last Senior Partner here in this dimension. His job was to command the Old Ones when they were awakened. But the slayers had ruined that plan. When he had awaked on "Her Graceful Measure" He was stunned at the lost of his army. He was reduced to making deals with vampires, an arrogant Bene Gesserit vampire, whose only value to him was that she wore the Gem of Amara.

He could hear the bothersome creature stomping her way down the hallway. He knew she would soon be before him with her irritating and trivial demands. As if on cue, the door to his sanctum burst open and Reverenced Mother Nisha appeared. She had one finger pointed at him and her mouth open to no doubt nag him again about logistics and other trivial concerns.

That's when he decided to teach her a lesson.

The Senior Partner turned and opened the palm of his left hand. Thick oily fire poured out of it. Nisha was on fire before she could take her second step. Her screams echoed off the stone masonry of the keep.

The Senior Partner watched dispassionately as her charred black form writhed on the floor. Little drops of flame and flesh popped off of her setting the carpet on fire. If she was not wearing the Gem of Amara she would have been dead by now. As it was, the Gem kept her alive and screaming. It would be weeks before all of her flesh grew back. She would be in searing pain the entire time.

"Indestructibility can be a curse when death is a better destiny." The Senior Partner said to himself. The Senior Partner watched the Gammu sun dip into the evening sky as he focused on the field test he had arranged for the weapon. Even now, a squad of vampires were headed to Arrakis armed with the mystical serum that could remove a slayers powers. The Watchers had used it to test the resourcefulness of the slayers thousands of years ago on Earth.

The only skill he wanted the slayers to have now was the ability to die quickly.

It was night of Arrakis. Lucilla stood on the marble steps of the Church of Universal Light. She was unwinding after an especially hard night. Thousands of citizens had seen the stars and the moon disappear from the skies of Arrakis. Hundreds had packed into the evening services. That was ten hours ago. The last of the citizens were leaving. Lucilla sat on the marble steps in front of the church and took in the cool night air.

She saw a star fall from the sky.

The small glowing object arced silently across the nighttime sky and then made a right angle turn. That's when she knew it wasn't a meteor but an assault ship coming in hot and fast under Fish Speaker radar. The slayer in her knew that the glowing object rapidly turning her way was bad. She could feel the evil radiating from it.

"Bless me Lord. A slayers work is never done." She thought to herself.

A single missile shot out of the ship and hit a few meters from her. The impact was curiously muted. The warhead gave a "pop" as a brown gas was released. Her experience with biological agents told her to run but it was too late. The brown gas burned her lungs slightly but there were no other effects in evidence.

The first vampire slammed into her knocking her backwards. The creature was on top of her with fangs bared. Its face was twisted into an evil grimace. Lucilla tried to push him off of her. She couldn't. Her strength was gone. It's teeth were penetrating into her neck. She let out as gasp as the vampire exploded into a cloud of dust.

The old niab she had saved held her stake in his hands.

"These things are worst than the water thieves of Jacurutu." The niab said. He helped her up to her feet. From inside the church, they could hear the sound of desperate hand to hand combat and the screams from the dying. Lucilla didn't know what to do. There were no other slayers nearby and her greatest weapon for such a short a time was gone.

She was helpless before the storm.

"You have other weapons." She could hear the Destroyer in her head.

"What must I do Lord?" She asked. The niab was starring at her.

"All slayers are connected, the new slayers more so. Surayya is a nexus. She and Letos slayers encompass both space and time. They are connected to Spike and the amulet by mystic threads that cannot be broken. I can give you some of that energy." The Destroyer said to her.

The niab was slammed against a wall as three vampires appeared out of nowhere. He screamed as they tore into him.

"Tell me, tell me Lord! What must I do?" Lucilla was desperate and running out of time.

"If you do this, you will not survive." The Destroyer warned her.

Lucilla watched the old niab struggle against death.

"Do it!" She said without hesitation. She was a slayer. She stepped up to the plate.

"Do it!" She commanded the God of the Slayers.

"Relax daughter and let the energy flow into you." He said.

Lucilla would feel the empty parts of herself fill up with a warm and buoyant energy that genially lifted her off the ground. From where she floated she could see hoards of vampires rushing in towards the church. At that moment, Lucilla understood something quite ironic.

"If this ends the way I think it will then no slayer will ever know we can do this." She relaxed as the energy washed over her. Using Letos slayers as an access point, The Destroyer tapped into the magics of the amulet that Spike wore at the battle of Sunnydale tens of thousands of years ago.

Her flesh flared. The skin on her arms began to glow. White light exploded out from her in all directions. Her body was instantly incinerated. The army of vampires burst into flames as the light cut through them. Historians would later record this event as the first miracle of the Church of Saint Lucilla.

Her ashes would never be found.

Surayya dropped to her knees with her arms folded. She just felt something sharp and powerful flow through her then explode. Her breath left her. The shock of it left her dazed.

Buffy felt it too.

"A slayer just died." She said flatly. "She was glowing." Buffy searched her senses for the source of the energy that turned the slayer into a supernova. "Spike." Buffy concluded. "The energy felt like Spike."

It took a moment for Surayya to get to her feet. She still felt light headed. She remembered her spice vision from Buffy's arrival.

She saw the surface of Arrakis covered with billions of Turok-Han and a sky the color of red.

"The blood storm is coming." Surayya said. She sounded as if all hope had been squeezed from her.

She grabbed Buffy's arm.

"Hurry, we have to make it to Sietch Kindle before the end of the world." She said.

**End Part 1 of 3**


End file.
